Putting in the Seed

Frost wrote a great many nature poems. He also wrote many dialogues between a husband and a wife. Robert Swennes observes that “Putting in the Seed” is a bit of both, because the speaker is planting apple seeds when his wife comes to tell him it’s time to go inside for dinner:

In “Putting in the Seed” the poet shows the parallel between a farmer’s “springtime passion for the earth” . . . and his love for his wife. . . . [T]hey draw closer together through their mutual love of the fruitful earth. (Swennes, Robert H. “Man and Wife: The Dialogue of Contraries in Robert Frost's Poetry.” American Literature, vol. 42, no. 3, 1970, p. 371)

This is one interpretation, but the poem is a bit more complicated than Swennes lets on, because unlike many of Frost’s marriage dialogues, in “Putting in the Seed,” the wife never speaks. As a result, it is unclear whether she truly shares the speaker’s feelings.

Instead of a marriage dialogue, it is more precise and nuanced to say that “Putting in the Seed” is a marriage monologue. Prior to the poem beginning, it appears the wife asked the speaker to go inside for dinner. This request is the occasion for the poem, but the wife’s words are not included. Instead, “Putting in the Seed” begins with the speaker’s response:

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 (Lines 1-4).

In a proper dialogue, the wife would reply. She doesn’t. Instead, these opening lines are followed by an aside that the speaker says either to himself or to the earth: “(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, / Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)” (Lines 5-6). The fact that these lines are enclosed in parentheses indicates they are separate from the speaker’s reply to his wife. Also, the emphasis on the sensuous and tactile nature of the seeds the speaker is planting—“soft,” “smooth,” and “wrinkled”—indicates his focus is on what his hands are doing, not on what his wife said or will say next.

Following this aside, the speaker indicates the wife may lose herself in planting the same way he has:

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 (Lines 7-9).

The speaker’s feelings are clear. Without his wife’s reaction, however, it’s impossible to tell whether she shares his “passion” (Line 9).

Nonetheless, the speaker continues: “How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed / On through the watching for the early birth” (Lines 10-11). Earlier in the poem, some words could be read as sexual innuendo, including “soft,” “petals,” “not so barren,” “smooth,” and “wrinkled” (Lines 4-5). Here, however, the innuendo is unmistakable. The phrase “Love burns” is not typically used to describe farming or gardening, but is a common way to describe sex and sexual desire. Moreover, plants are not typically said to “birth,” but human intercourse sometimes results in the birth of a child.

The innuendo continues: “When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, / The sturdy seedling with arched body comes” (Lines 12-13). The image of an “arched body” rising from something dirty and tarnished describes a seedling sprouting from the ground, but also evokes the human body during intercourse; “comes” is, of course, suggestive of sex. This could be a moment when the speaker and his wife “draw closer together,” as Swennes claims, but it’s impossible to tell for sure if this planting is as enthralling and erotically charged for the speaker’s wife as it is for the speaker. The wife gives no indications of her feelings as she is not permitted a voice in the poem.

Like the first 13 lines of “Putting in the Seed,” the final line is open to two possible interpretations. “Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs” (Line 14) is a shove of an ending if this poem is a dialogue, a forceful ending if it’s a monologue. Both interpretations are available.