There are no ends or beginnings - there are only middles

I recently encountered an extended review of a "new American poet" -

A short time ago I found on a London bookstall an odd number of The Poetry Review, with examples of and comments on “Modern American Poets,”—examples which whetted my curiosity...a literary friend chanced to place in my hands a slim green volume, North of Boston, by Robert Frost. I read it, and reread it. It seemed to me that this poet was destined to take a permanent place in American literature. I asked myself why this book was issued by an English and not by an American publisher. And to this question I have found no answer. I may add here, in parenthesis, that I know nothing of Mr. Robert Frost save the three or four particulars I gleaned from the English friend who sent me North of Boston... He is a master of his exacting medium, blank verse,—a new master.”

I was startled to see the review accompanied by a line drawing of Robert Frost, and  then realized the review was a reprint of one originally written in August of 1915.  

The review not surprisingly cites "Mending Wall" and "The Death of the Hired Man," but I realized there were poems cited that were unfamiliar to me, so I requested the book from our library, and in perusing it found this somewhat startling turn of phrase:

"Ends and beginnings - there are no such things.

There are only middles."

"In the Home Stretch"

It seemed to be incorrect, until I remembered a comment offered by a reader recently citing October 7 as the "beginning" of the current middle-East conflict.  Then I tried to think about the true "beginning" of WWII or the American Civil War (and whether such wars ever have "ends" or just change form)...  Thus the title of this post and a thought I'm still turning over in my mind.

Herewith some other excerpts from poems in Frost's original anthology:

"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."

"Mending Wall"

"Home is the place where, when you  have to go there,

They have to take you in."

"The Death of the Hired Man"

"It's rest I want - there, I have said it out -

From cooking meals for hungry hired men

And washing dishes after them - from doing

Things over and over that just won't stay done."

"A Servant to Servants"

For, dear me, why abandon a belief

Merely because it ceases to be true.

Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt

It will turn true again, for so it goes. 

Most of the change we think we see in life

Is due to truths being in and out of favor." 

"The Black Cottage"

"If one by one we counted people out

For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long

To get so we had no one left to live with.

For to be social is to be forgiving."

"The Star Splitter"

Comments welcome about Frost, poetry, and the existence (or not) of absolute beginnings and endings, but no comments about war please...