Robert Frost

Putting in the Seed

YOU come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.

Agricultural metaphor

Seed-planting becomes a sensual, almost erotic act of creation and potential.

How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes

Emergence metaphor

Seedling described like a living creature—'shouldering' suggests active, muscular growth.

Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Fertility and Labor

Frost transforms agricultural work into an intimate act of creation. The poem blurs lines between physical labor, natural reproduction, and human passion.

The speaker is simultaneously planting seeds and being pulled away from that task—suggesting how deeply connected human work is to natural cycles. Putting in the Seed becomes a metaphor for generative energy that transcends simple farming.

Sensual Landscape

[CONTEXT: Written during Frost's New England farming period] The poem personifies seeds and soil with surprisingly erotic language. Words like 'burns', 'shouldering', and descriptions of smooth/wrinkled textures make agricultural work feel deeply sensual.

Frost consistently treats landscape as a living, responsive environment—not just a backdrop for human activity, but a dynamic participant in creation.