‘Men work together.’ I told him from the heart, ‘Whether they work together or apart.’
Genuine
Yes. In A Boy’s Will (1913), ‘The Tuft of Flowers’, final couplet, said by the first-person field worker. These are the character’s words, not a statement in Frost’s own voice.
Checked against Robert Frost, ‘The Tuft of Flowers’, A Boy’s Will (1913), published text at the Academy of American Poets, in a full-text transcription.
- Work
- A Boy’s Will, 1913
- Where
- ‘The Tuft of Flowers’, final couplet
- Source
- Robert Frost, ‘The Tuft of Flowers’, A Boy’s Will (1913), published text at the Academy of American Poets
- Checked
- In a full-text transcription
Researched by AI. Entry updated 27 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
About this quote
The scene
A worker comes to turn grass already cut by another man and initially takes their separate labor as proof of everyone’s loneliness. A butterfly leads him to flowers the earlier mower spared simply for their beauty. Recognizing a shared feeling in that act, the speaker imagines working, resting and conversing with the absent man, and reverses his earlier judgment.
What it means
Shared care and purpose can join people who never work side by side. A stranger’s small act of attention can make solitary work feel like fellowship.
Often misread
This is not an exchange the speaker actually has with the mower: the poem explicitly makes their conversation imagined. Nor is it a practical claim that all separate labor is coordinated; the closing conviction grows from a particular discovery that overturns the speaker’s initial loneliness.
Topics
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Cite it
Robert Frost, A Boy’s Will (1913), ‘The Tuft of Flowers’, final couplet. Spoken by the first-person field worker. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/men-work-together-whether-together-or-apart/ (27 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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