Pursuing the Dream as a Central Idea in Poetry Answers

Read the excerpt from "Mending Wall."I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again.We keep the wall between us as we go.To each the boulders that have fallen to each.And some are loaves and some so nearly ballsWe have to use a spell to make them balance:"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"We wear our fingers rough with handling them.Oh, just another kind of out-door game,One on a side. It comes to little more:There where it is we do not need the wall:He is all pine and I am apple orchard.What does the phrase “one on a side” mean?

Which practice was typical of Robert Frost?

Read the excerpt from "Mending Wall."He is all pine and I am apple orchard.My apple trees will never get acrossAnd eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."Based on the excerpt, what does the speaker most likely think about the wall?

Read the poem "The Wife-Woman," by Anne Spencer.Maker-of-sevens in the scheme of thingsFrom earth to star;Thy cycle holds whatever is fate, andOver the border the bar.Though rank and fierce the marinerSailing the seven seas,He prays, as he holds his glass to his eyes,Coaxing the Pleiades.I cannot love them; and I feel your gladChiding from the grave,That my all was only worth at all, whatJoy to you it gave.These seven links the Law compelledFor the human chain—I cannot love them; and you, oh,Seven-fold months in Flanders slain!A jungle there, a cave here, bred sixAnd a million years,Sure and strong, mate for mate, suchLove as culture fears;I gave you clear the oil and wine;You saved me your hob and hearth—See how even life may be ere theSickle comes and leaves a swath.But I can wait the seven of moons,Or years I spare,Hoarding the heart’s plenty, nor spendA drop, nor share—So long but outlives a smile andA silken gown;Then gaily I reach up from my shroud,And you, glory-clad, reach down.What is the main similarity between “The Wife-Woman” and Frost’s poem "Mending Wall"?

Which practice did Robert Frost have in common with his modernist peers?

Read the excerpt from "Mending Wall." I see him thereBringing a stone grasped firmly by the topIn each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees.He will not go behind his father's saying,And he likes having thought of it so wellHe says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."Based on the excerpt, what does the speaker think of his neighbor?

Which lines from "Mending Wall" indicate that the neighbor is willing to participate in mending the wall?

Read the excerpt from "Mending Wall."Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonderIf I could put a notion in his head:"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't itWhere there are cows? But here there are no cows.Before I built a wall I'd ask to knowWhat I was walling in or walling out,And to whom I was like to give offence.Something there is that doesn't love a wall,That wants it down."Now read “The Pasture,” also by Robert Frost. I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):I shan’t be gone long.—You come too.I’m going out to fetch the little calfThat’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,It totters when she licks it with her tongue.I shan’t be gone long.—You come too. Which best accounts for the different views of spring expressed in the poems?

Which practice was common among modernist poets?

Read the poem “The Man Against the Sky” by Edwin Arlington Robinson.Between me and the sunset, like a domeAgainst the glory of a world on fire,Now burned a sudden hill,Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher,With nothing on it for the flame to killSave one who moved and was alone up thereTo loom before the chaos and the glareAs if he were the last god going homeUnto his last desire.Dark, marvelous, and inscrutable he moved onTill down the fiery distance he was gone,—Like one of those eternal, remote thingsThat range across a man's imaginingsWhen a sure music fills him and he knowsWhat he may say thereafter to few men,—The touch of ages having wroughtAn echo and a glimpse of what he thoughtA phantom or a legend until then;For whether lighted over ways that save,Or lured from all repose,If he go on too far to find a grave,Mostly alone he goes.What is the main similarity between “The Man Against the Sky” and Frost’s poem "Mending Wall"?