Lines 1-6 Summary

Lines 1-3

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

• Introduction time. Shmoopers, the first lines of the poem pack a punch to be reckoned with. We're introduced to one of the main "characters" of the poem, the saw. Notice how there is no operator of the saw here—it's just as though the saw is working on its own, with its only companion the breeze and the dust it produces. The saw is anthropomorphized here, which is just a fancy word for personification.
• The saw is a machine making animal noises, "snarling" and rattling." This is some onomatopoeia. It also makes the first line animalistic, but the second is productive and machinelike—it produces dust and logs for a fire to keep people warm. 
• In line three, we get a sensory setup—the dust is "sweet-scented stuff" when the wind blows. 
• We also have a strange construction: saws make wood logs, not dust. Our attention is called to the refuse of the saw's work, though. We wonder if that might be important later on. 
• For now, though, in three short line, we have some of the main ideas of the poem—unsupervised machinery, the mixing of the wild (animal saw) and the productive (human), and the sensory experience of that process. 
• A note on the rhythm: we've got some iambic pentameter in free verse here, better known as blank verse. It's not consistent, though. Notice how Frost mixes and matches here. The first line is iambic, but only part of the third line is. Head over to our "Form and Meter" section for more.

Lines 4-6

And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.

• Lines 4-6 continue setting the stage. 
• We are told exactly where we are—if the sun is setting to the west, and Vermont is to the west, then we must be in… (checking Google Maps)… Santa Monica—no wait: New Hampshire. 
• We're in rural New England, folks, and we're surrounded by mountains, sunsets, and other natural imagery. 
• See also how Frost sets up our sense of space—"those that lifted eyes could count"—this is an incredible line about human awareness of spatiality. 
• What we mean is, humans are more than dumb animals—we can count things, observe how space works, and experience beauty. 
• So here, Frost is essentially telling us, "Listen up readers! This is about taking in what your eyes can see. This poem is about understanding how your surroundings work, and where you are in them." We guess we'd better step up our analysis game, then.