Lines 1-7 Summary

Lines 1-2

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.

• The first line doesn't directly tell us what is making this one noise, but the alliteration gives us a strong preview of the sound itself. The soft S in the words "sound" and "beside" mimic the hiss of the scythe as it cuts through the grass. The airy swoop of the W sounds in "was," "wood," and "one" echoes the sound the sharp blade makes when it cuts through the air. There are also repeated B sounds in "beside" and "but" that resemble the sound of the mower stepping forward between strokes.
• The cacophony in the poem continues with the onomatopoeia in the word "whispering."
• It's rare to be out beside a forest and not hear any sound at all, ever, so right off the bat we have to wonder whether Frost was being completely literal in this poem (hint: we're pretty sure he's not). Since being out in a relatively wild section of the grass would inevitably include some kind of bird singing or weird bug noises, it seems like what is really happening here is that the narrator is so deep in concentration that he just doesn't hear anything else, not that there isn't actually any other noise.
• A scythe—a long-handled farm tool with a huge curved blade designed to cut large sections of grass and wheat—is not only handy for grass, but also apparently very handy for reaping souls, since depictions of death often show the grim reaper wielding one.
• Because of the association of the scythe with death, we can't help but wonder if maybe the poem might be about something a little more than mowing the lawn.

Line 3

What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;

• The scythe "whispered," so the narrator isn't sure what it said.
• Again with the alliteration. This line is full of the whooshing W sounds and a few S sounds, too.
• The repetitive sounds are almost hypnotizing, just like the steady, back-and-forth motion of a man working with a scythe.
• The last we checked, though, scythes don't actually talk. In fact, if the scythe were talking, any rational person would drop it like a hot cake and high-tail it out of that field. Luckily, Frost is just using personification to bring the scythe to life so it can talk to us.
• It might be valuable to note that the narrator is speaking in past tense. Considering how fickle our memories are, it's difficult to tell whether the narrator is just imagining what was happening in the field that day or if the poem is an accurate reflection of the events.

Lines 4-6

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.

• Here the speaker is full of conjecture about what the scythe may have whispered. It's a brief conjecture because, really, what could a scythe possibly talk to anyone about? The heat and the quiet—yep, that's about it.
• The fact that the narrator is having to mow the grass at all tips us off that it's probably springtime, but the heat of the sun tells us that it may be summer. Whatever the season, it's warm out. Maybe the heat contributed to the narrator's delusions that a piece of farm equipment is talking to him.
• At first the lack of sound isn't particularly interesting, but if we consider it with the heat then we would expect an awful racket from all the birds and summer insects. Why is it so quiet, anyway?
• Even the scythe seems to sense this stillness. When it's so quiet, someone speaking might be startling, so the scythe whispers.
• Using a scythe to mow the lawn is pretty hard work, but there is something kind of meditative about the steady, fluid motion. Maybe there really are plenty of noises surrounding the narrator, but he's so deeply focused on the work that he doesn't hear any of it. Instead, all he hears is the whispering blade as it moves through the grass.

Line 7

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,

• Before becoming known as a poet, Frost was a farmer. He is no stranger to hard work, and this line tells us that he isn't opposed to it either. He makes peace with the fact that life includes hard work at times, and he isn't wasting his time whining that he wished he had slept in that morning and was lounging around with a mimosa instead of being out in the hot sun, mowing the lawn with a scythe.
• This line is also where we start to understand that this poem isn't just about mowing the lawn. It's about poetry in general and how good poetry comes to be.
• A common impression of poets, especially at the time Frost was writing, is that all they do is sit around and daydream. A lot of the process of writing poetry, of course, goes on inside the poet's head. It may look like they are sitting around doing nothing, but the wheels upstairs are churning away with wild abandon. In other words, writing poetry is hard work. It is the mental equivalent to the physical effort of mowing with a scythe.