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Because Frost wrote “Mending Wall” in blank verse, the poem doesn’t make significant use of rhyme. In fact, the only clear example of end rhyme that appears in the entire poem is so spread out it’s virtually unnoticeable. The words “repair” and “there” form an exact rhyme, but since they occur at the end of lines 6 and 11, respectively, they strain the very definition of end rhyme. Aside from this instance, Frost also includes two couplets that feature an inexact form of rhyme known as slant rhyme. In lines 41 and 42 we get the pairing of “me” and “trees,” and in lines 13 and 14 we get “line” and “again.” However, in a poem that otherwise steers clear of rhyme, it’s quite difficult to even notice these partial rhymes. Frost’s thorough avoidance of rhyme is clearly intentional. More importantly, it gives the speaker’s language a degree of authenticity. If the reader is to believe that the speaker is an ordinary guy who attends to the ordinary work of keeping up his country orchard, then it makes sense for his speech to sound as ordinary as possible. That is to say, his speech shouldn’t rhyme.

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