“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor 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 balls
We 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.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What 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.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In 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 well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

The central relationship in the poem is
A.
between farmers and hunters
B.
between the speaker and his neighbor
C.
between farmers and Mother Nature
D.
between the speaker and himself
E.
between the speaker and God

What to the slave is the fourth of july? by frederick douglass fellow-citizens—pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am i called upon to speak here to-day? what have i, or those i represent, to do with your national independence? are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that declaration of independence, extended to us? and am i, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us? but, such is not the state of the case. i say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. i am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. the blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. the rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. this fourth of july is yours, not mine. you may rejoice, i must mourn. to drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, i hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. if i do forget, if i do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! " to forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before god and the world. my subject, then, fellow-citizens, is american slavery. i shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. standing there, identified with the american bondman, making his wrongs mine, i do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this fourth of july. whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. what is one of the lessons douglass impresses on his listeners? a) the nation should not rejoice until everyone has freedom. b) he must speak on the fourth of july in order to bring change. c) for him to join the celebration would be treason. d) he can see the perspective of slaves and citizens with equal clarity.

If your job was precarious,would you look for a new one? explain.

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