Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.
Robert Frost18741963The Tuft of Flowers
I
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
“Whether they work together or apart.”
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
“Whether they work together or apart.”