| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917. |
| |
| 124. Mowing |
| | | By Robert Frost |
| |
| |
| 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— | 5 |
| And that was why it whispered and did not speak. | |
| It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, | |
| Or easy cold at the hand of fay or elf: | |
| Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak | |
| To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows— | 10 |
| 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. | |
| |
|
|
|
