The Scythers

The Scythers, N. C. Wyeth, 1908

I posted this beautiful Wyeth painting earlier, but it is one of my

very favorites and just had to show it again, before the summer is

over. You can feel the hot sun, the thirst of the workers and smell

the freshly cut field. I think it fits this poem by Robert Frost very

nicely.

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 weak

To 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 labour knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

~~~~~

It takes WT about three solid hours to cut our grass and that

is with a riding mower! And I'm all too happy to have him handle

it! I always get a good chuckle over Susan talking about dealing

with her mower, at 29 Blackstreet, fondly named "The Red

Beast". One thing I do enjoy about mowing, however, is the fresh

scent of newly cut grass! Pam posted on the subject of grass this

week and a poem by Walt Whitman which refers to grass as "the

handkerchief of the Lord". I love that.