"Mending Wall" and "Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost

In Robert Frost's Mending Wall, the wall is a symbol of distance between people. The phrase, "Good fences make good neighbors," the narrator's neighbor is talking about maintaining or building a wall. The neighbor wants to keep a distance between the two. When he says, "good fences," he is talking about having a good wall by maintaining the wall, he means having a great distance between the two. This is why in the line, "bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top...," the neighbor is building the wall with stones, to keep a good distance between him and the narrator. By building the wall with stones, the neighbor is making sure that his wall is well maintained in order to keep the narrator away from him. I think this is talking about society. Sometimes we don't want to be bothered, so we want to keep people away from us as much as possible.

In the line, "we keep the wall between us as we go," means that when we are walking among people or in a social setting, we try to keep our distance---we mind our own business to the extreme that we bring our walls along with us wherever we go. If we don't break the wall and reach out to other people, what we're doing is building the wall even stronger---stone by stone. We are living in an anti-social society where everybody's minding their own business.

Also, in the line, "I have come after them and made repair," the narrator is talking about repairing the wall. If someone else tries to reach out to us---tries to break the wall, we shut this person out, and we go back inside our shell. The wall that Frost is talking about in this poem I find it similar to the expression we use today, "staying inside our shell." It has the same meaning as building walls between people. Maybe we should come out with our own phrase, "Good shells make good neighbors."

In Acquainted with the Night, I suspect the speaker has become one with the night by walking through the streets, "I have been one acquainted with the night/I have walked out in rain.../I have outwalked the furthest city light." He has discover the night, how it feels to walk in the night. I also suspect that the speaker hears voices and/or noises as he's walking in the night, "I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet/when far away an interrupted cry." I think maybe the speaker could be frightened by the night and that's why he's nervous and hears sounds. Furthermore, I like Frost's use of repetition, "I have been one.../I have walked out.../I have walked out.../I have outwalked...," it's working well in this poem. I noticed Frost's use of rhyme on every stanza, ABA, "...the saddest city lane/...watchman on his beat/...unwilling to explain," and a couplet on the last two lines, "...neither wrong nor right/...acquainted with the night."