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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.
By Robert Frost
Acquainted with the Night
Robert Frost
After Apple-Picking
Robert Frost
A Time To Talk
Robert Frost
Birches
Robert Frost
Dust of Snow
Robert Frost
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Mending Wall
Robert Frost
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
October
Robert Frost
Once by the Pacific
Robert Frost
Out, Out—
Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
The Death of the Hired Man
Robert Frost
The Gift Outright
Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
West-Running Brook
Robert Frost