Mowing
THERE was never a sound beside the wood but one,And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound--And that was why it whispered and did not speak.It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weakTo the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
Words in this poem
- swale n.
- A valley or low place; a tract of low, and usually wet, land; a moor; a fen. [Cf. Icel. svalr cool, svala to cool.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mowing is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Boy's Will, Project Gutenberg ebook #3021; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Frost, Mowing, in A Boy's Will (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-boys-will/mowing.html, id L04636.
Form and metre
Mowing is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCABDECDFEGFG. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.1 syllables. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABCABDECDFEGFG oneA · groundB · myselfC · sunA · soundB · speakD · hoursE · elfC · weakD · rowsF · flowersE · snakeG · knowsF · makeG
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THERE was never a sound beside the wood but one, | 11 | ··/··˘/···· |
| And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; | 12 | ····/˘·····/ |
| Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, | 13 | ˘/··/˘······· |
| Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound-- | 10 | /˘˘/······ |
| And that was why it whispered and did not speak. | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, | 11 | ········/˘/ |
| Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak | 12 | /˘·········· |
| To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, | 12 | ··/˘········ |
| Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers | 10 | ···/˘/˘··/ |
| (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. | 10 | ·········· |
| The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make. | 11 | ···/˘······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.