First Stanza: “Out of the mud two strangers came”
In the first stanza of Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” the speaker is splitting oak logs, when he is accosted by “two strangers” who had appeared “[o]ut of the mud.” He has faltered a bit in his aim at the block of wood, because one of the tramps yelled out, “"Hit them hard!"
The yeller had dropped behind his buddy, and the speaker says he knows that the fellow lagged behind so he could try to “take [the speaker’s] job for pay.”
Second Stanza: “Good blocks of oak it was I split”
The speaker then details his prowess in wood-splitting: “every piece I squarely hit / Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.” The wood was good, and the speaker was good at his job of splitting it.
The speaker then waxes philosophical. Although a well-disciplined individual might think that philanthropy is always in order, today this speaker decides to keep the job for himself, even though the tramps obviously could use the money they would earn if he hired them to do his wood-splitting for him.
Third Stanza: “The sun was warm but the wind was chill”
In the third stanza, the speaker ruminates over the weather. It is a nice warm day even though there is a chilly wind. It’s that Eliotic “cruelest month” of April, when sometimes the weather will seem like the middle of May and then suddenly it’s like the middle of March again.
Fourth Stanza: “A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight”
Then the speaker dramatizes the actions and possible thoughts of a bluebird who “ . . . comes tenderly up to alight / And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume.” The bird sings his song but is not enthusiastic yet, because there are no flowers blooming yet.
A snowflake appears, and the speaker and the bird realize that “[w]inter was only playing possum.” The bird is happy enough, but he would not encourage the flowers to bloom yet, because he knows there is still a good chance of frost. Beauties of nature are always contrasted with ugliness, warm with cold, light with dark, soft with sharp.
Fifth Stanza: “The water for which we may have to look”
Water is plentiful in mid-spring, whereas in summer they have to look for it “with a witching wand.” But now it makes a “brook” of “every wheelrut[ ]” and “every print of a hoof” is “a pond.” The speaker offers the advice to be appreciative of the water, but “don’t forget / The lurking frost in the earth beneath / That will steal forth after the sun is set / And show on the water its crystal teeth.” Every good thing has its opposite on this earth.
Sixth Stanza: “The time when most I loved my task”
In the sixth stanza, the speaker returns to the issue of the tramps. The speaker loves splitting the oak logs, but when the two tramps came along covertly trying to usurp his beloved task, that make[s him] love it more.” It makes the speaker feel that he had never done this work before, he is so loathe to give it up.
Seventh Stanza: “Out of the wood two hulking tramps”
The speaker knows that these two tramps are just lazy bums, even though they had earlier been lumberjacks working at the lumber camps nearby. He knows that they have sized him up and decided they deserved to be performing his beloved task.
Eighth Stanza: “Nothing on either side was said”
The speaker and the tramps did not converse. The speaker claims that the tramps knew they didn’t have to say anything; they assumed it would be obvious to the speaker they deserved to be splitting the wood. They would split wood because they needed the money, but the speaker is splitting the wood for the love of it. It did not matter that the tramps had “agreed” that they had a better claim.
Ninth Stanza: “But yield who will to their separation”
The speaker is convinced that he has the better claim and is, in fact, more deserving of his labor then the mud tramps: “My object in living is to unite / My avocation and my vocation.” He conjoins his two jobs into a spiritual whole, because he has realized that accomplishing any task is significant “Only where love and need are one.”
The tramps need to scoot along and leave the speaker to his chores.
Other Frost articles:
- Robert Frost’s “The Fear”: Vanity Unnamed
- Frost’s “The Witch of Coös”: Bones in the Attic
- Farmer/Poet Frost: Analysis of Robert Frost’s “Putting in the Seed”
- Robert Frost’s Golden Moments: “Nothing Gold Can Stay”
- Frost’s “Birches”: Going Toward Heaven
- Robert Frost: A Lone Wolf
- Frost’s ‘The Oven Bird’
- Frost’s "Mending Wall"
- Frost’s Snow and Woods
- Robert Frost’s Tricky Poem
- Robert Frost’s "Bereft": Hissing Leaves
