Discuss the significant features of Robert Frost’s poetry? Answer with special reference to ‘Mending Wall’ and ‘Birches’.

human beings intrinsically distrust each other even when there is no reason to do so and how these suspicions should be replaced by trust and mutual good will. While his neighbour believes “Good fences make good neighbours,” Frost keeps thinking. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” When one notes the year, 1914. In which this poem is composed one cannot help relate it to the outbreak of the First World War. It is the same sensibility of building walls and fences, of protecting one’s property, of suspecting one’s neighbours, that can take place even on a global basis and lead to wars. Trust and fellow feeling can go a long way in avoiding this sort of a situation.

Note the masterly way m which Frost uses the rhythms of the speaking voice and his understated style. His poetry helped evolve a new voice for modern poetry so that poetry sounded effortless, shorn of any deliberate poetic ornamentation, was meditative. In his hands poetry took on some of the qualities of prose.

“Birches”-

The first part of this poem (Ll-41) consists of a fairly straightforward nature
description. Frost speaks of the many different appearances of birches in summer