Analyzing the Text
Nature doesn’t love a wall, since the thawing of the ground after winter dislodges the carefully-constructed wall and sends stones falling down. Besides the natural world, the speaker himself isn’t too fond of walls.
“Spring is the mischief in me,” he says, wanting to have a little fun and attribute the wall falling down to elves and not to natural forces.
Rather than directly saying that he doesn’t like walls, the speaker presents more than one interpretation of his lines. Evidence supporting the idea that he believes good walls make good neighbors include the lines when he companionably works alongside his neighbor to rebuild their mutual wall each spring. Evidence against that is the tense relationship revealed toward the end of the poem, which leads the reader to realize that without a wall to divide their property the two neighbors would end up squabbling.
Mary is kind-hearted, while Silas is exhausted and lonely. This information foreshadows Mary’s worries about Silas and Silas’ eventual fate.
It reveals a pensive, sad side of her character.
He sees it as a refuge and a familiar place. Mary understands what the place truly means to him, while Warren is initially frustrated because he doesn’t think Silas is much good at anything and wishes he worked harder.
In the first poem, two men are speaking. In the second, it is a husband and wife. The plot is much more mundane in the first, while the second is a little more dramatic and sad since it contains a death. The first poem shows that the narrator has a sense of humor, while the second is much more serious and includes elements such as pity and frustration. The setting of both poems is a farm.