The Death of the Hired Man Summary & Analysis

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The Full Text of “The Death of the Hired Man”

1Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table

2Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,

3She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage

4To meet him in the doorway with the news

5And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’

6She pushed him outward with her through the door

7And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.

8She took the market things from Warren’s arms

9And set them on the porch, then drew him down

10To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

11‘When was I ever anything but kind to him?

12But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said.

13‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?

14If he left then, I said, that ended it.

15What good is he? Who else will harbor him

16At his age for the little he can do?

17What help he is there’s no depending on.

18Off he goes always when I need him most.

19He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,

20Enough at least to buy tobacco with,

21So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.

22“All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay

23Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.”

24“Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.”

25I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself

26If that was what it was. You can be certain,

27When he begins like that, there’s someone at him

28Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—

29In haying time, when any help is scarce.

30In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’

31‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.

32‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’

33‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.

34When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,

35Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,

36A miserable sight, and frightening, too—

37You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him—

38I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.

39Wait till you see.’

40                          ‘Where did you say he’d been?’

41‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,

42And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.

43I tried to make him talk about his travels.

44Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’

45‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’

46‘But little.’

47                ‘Anything? Mary, confess

48He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’

49‘Warren!’

50              ‘But did he? I just want to know.’

51‘Of course he did. What would you have him say?

52Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man

53Some humble way to save his self-respect.

54He added, if you really care to know,

55He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.

56That sounds like something you have heard before?

57Warren, I wish you could have heard the way

58He jumbled everything. I stopped to look

59Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—

60To see if he was talking in his sleep.

61He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—

62The boy you had in haying four years since.

63He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.

64Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.

65He says they two will make a team for work:

66Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!

67The way he mixed that in with other things.

68He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft

69On education—you know how they fought

70All through July under the blazing sun,

71Silas up on the cart to build the load,

72Harold along beside to pitch it on.’

73‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’

74‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.

75You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!

76Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.

77After so many years he still keeps finding

78Good arguments he sees he might have used.

79I sympathize. I know just how it feels

80To think of the right thing to say too late.

81Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.

82He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying

83He studied Latin like the violin

84Because he liked it—that an argument!

85He said he couldn’t make the boy believe

86He could find water with a hazel prong—

87Which showed how much good school had ever done him.

88He wanted to go over that. But most of all

89He thinks if he could have another chance

90To teach him how to build a load of hay—’

91‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.

92He bundles every forkful in its place,

93And tags and numbers it for future reference,

94So he can find and easily dislodge it

95In the unloading. Silas does that well.

96He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.

97You never see him standing on the hay

98He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’

99‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be

100Some good perhaps to someone in the world.

101He hates to see a boy the fool of books.

102Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,

103And nothing to look backward to with pride,

104And nothing to look forward to with hope,

105So now and never any different.’

106Part of a moon was falling down the west,

107Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

108Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it

109And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand

110Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,

111Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,

112As if she played unheard some tenderness

113That wrought on him beside her in the night.

114‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die:

115You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’

116‘Home,’ he mocked gently.

117                                       ‘Yes, what else but home?

118It all depends on what you mean by home.

119Of course he’s nothing to us, any more

120Than was the hound that came a stranger to us

121Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’

122‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,

123They have to take you in.’

124                                      ‘I should have called it

125Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’

126Warren leaned out and took a step or two,

127Picked up a little stick, and brought it back

128And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.

129‘Silas has better claim on us you think

130Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles

131As the road winds would bring him to his door.

132Silas has walked that far no doubt today.

133Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,

134A somebody—director in the bank.’

135‘He never told us that.’

136                                  ‘We know it though.’

137‘I think his brother ought to help, of course.

138I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right

139To take him in, and might be willing to—

140He may be better than appearances.

141But have some pity on Silas. Do you think

142If he’d had any pride in claiming kin

143Or anything he looked for from his brother,

144He’d keep so still about him all this time?’

145‘I wonder what’s between them.’

146                                                ‘I can tell you.

147Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—

148But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.

149He never did a thing so very bad.

150He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good

151As anyone. Worthless though he is,

152He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’

153I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’

154‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay

155And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.

156He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.

157You must go in and see what you can do.

158I made the bed up for him there tonight.

159You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.

160His working days are done; I'm sure of it.’

161‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’

162‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.

163But, Warren, please remember how it is:

164He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.

165He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.

166He may not speak of it, and then he may.

167I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud

168Will hit or miss the moon.’

169                                      It hit the moon.

170Then there were three there, making a dim row,

171The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

172Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,

173Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

174‘Warren,’ she questioned.

175                                     ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.

The Full Text of “The Death of the Hired Man”

1Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table

2Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,

3She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage

4To meet him in the doorway with the news

5And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’

6She pushed him outward with her through the door

7And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.

8She took the market things from Warren’s arms

9And set them on the porch, then drew him down

10To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

11‘When was I ever anything but kind to him?

12But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said.

13‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?

14If he left then, I said, that ended it.

15What good is he? Who else will harbor him

16At his age for the little he can do?

17What help he is there’s no depending on.

18Off he goes always when I need him most.

19He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,

20Enough at least to buy tobacco with,

21So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.

22“All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay

23Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.”

24“Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.”

25I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself

26If that was what it was. You can be certain,

27When he begins like that, there’s someone at him

28Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—

29In haying time, when any help is scarce.

30In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’

31‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.

32‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’

33‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.

34When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,

35Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,

36A miserable sight, and frightening, too—

37You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him—

38I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.

39Wait till you see.’

40                          ‘Where did you say he’d been?’

41‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,

42And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.

43I tried to make him talk about his travels.

44Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’

45‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’

46‘But little.’

47                ‘Anything? Mary, confess

48He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’

49‘Warren!’

50              ‘But did he? I just want to know.’

51‘Of course he did. What would you have him say?

52Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man

53Some humble way to save his self-respect.

54He added, if you really care to know,

55He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.

56That sounds like something you have heard before?

57Warren, I wish you could have heard the way

58He jumbled everything. I stopped to look

59Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—

60To see if he was talking in his sleep.

61He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—

62The boy you had in haying four years since.

63He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.

64Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.

65He says they two will make a team for work:

66Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!

67The way he mixed that in with other things.

68He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft

69On education—you know how they fought

70All through July under the blazing sun,

71Silas up on the cart to build the load,

72Harold along beside to pitch it on.’

73‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’

74‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.

75You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!

76Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.

77After so many years he still keeps finding

78Good arguments he sees he might have used.

79I sympathize. I know just how it feels

80To think of the right thing to say too late.

81Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.

82He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying

83He studied Latin like the violin

84Because he liked it—that an argument!

85He said he couldn’t make the boy believe

86He could find water with a hazel prong—

87Which showed how much good school had ever done him.

88He wanted to go over that. But most of all

89He thinks if he could have another chance

90To teach him how to build a load of hay—’

91‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.

92He bundles every forkful in its place,

93And tags and numbers it for future reference,

94So he can find and easily dislodge it

95In the unloading. Silas does that well.

96He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.

97You never see him standing on the hay

98He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’

99‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be

100Some good perhaps to someone in the world.

101He hates to see a boy the fool of books.

102Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,

103And nothing to look backward to with pride,

104And nothing to look forward to with hope,

105So now and never any different.’

106Part of a moon was falling down the west,

107Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

108Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it

109And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand

110Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,

111Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,

112As if she played unheard some tenderness

113That wrought on him beside her in the night.

114‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die:

115You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’

116‘Home,’ he mocked gently.

117                                       ‘Yes, what else but home?

118It all depends on what you mean by home.

119Of course he’s nothing to us, any more

120Than was the hound that came a stranger to us

121Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’

122‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,

123They have to take you in.’

124                                      ‘I should have called it

125Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’

126Warren leaned out and took a step or two,

127Picked up a little stick, and brought it back

128And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.

129‘Silas has better claim on us you think

130Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles

131As the road winds would bring him to his door.

132Silas has walked that far no doubt today.

133Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,

134A somebody—director in the bank.’

135‘He never told us that.’

136                                  ‘We know it though.’

137‘I think his brother ought to help, of course.

138I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right

139To take him in, and might be willing to—

140He may be better than appearances.

141But have some pity on Silas. Do you think

142If he’d had any pride in claiming kin

143Or anything he looked for from his brother,

144He’d keep so still about him all this time?’

145‘I wonder what’s between them.’

146                                                ‘I can tell you.

147Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—

148But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.

149He never did a thing so very bad.

150He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good

151As anyone. Worthless though he is,

152He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’

153I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’

154‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay

155And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.

156He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.

157You must go in and see what you can do.

158I made the bed up for him there tonight.

159You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.

160His working days are done; I'm sure of it.’

161‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’

162‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.

163But, Warren, please remember how it is:

164He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.

165He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.

166He may not speak of it, and then he may.

167I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud

168Will hit or miss the moon.’

169                                      It hit the moon.

170Then there were three there, making a dim row,

171The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

172Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,

173Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

174‘Warren,’ she questioned.

175                                     ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Introduction

    • Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" details a tense conversation between a farmer and his wife, who are debating whether or not to let their old farmhand, Silas, return to the farm after breaking his earlier contract. The wife, Mary, pities the now terminally ill Silas, while the husband, Warren, is reluctant to give him another chance. By the time Warren relents, it's too late: Silas has died. Frost is best known for his depictions of New England but was fascinated by the dynamics of rural life, and "The Death of the Hired Man" sees him explore many of the social and political dynamics that characterize his work more broadly: issues of class, compassion, and morality. Frost's own life was plagued by loss—his father died when he was a child, for example, and his mother died shortly afterward—so this poem's melancholy tone and pessimistic ending may have been informed by his own experiences with grief and illness. Frost wrote "The Death of the Hired Man" in 1905 or 1906 and later included the poem in his 1914 collection North of Boston.

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Summary

    • A woman named Mary sits staring at the flame of an oil lamp while waiting for her husband, Warren, to get back from the market. Upon hearing his footsteps, she quietly runs down the dark hallway to meet him and deliver some news that'll put him on edge: their old farmhand, Silas, has returned to the farm. Mary pushes Warren back outside through their front door, closing it behind her while telling her husband to be kind to Silas. She takes Warren's shopping from him and then pulls him down to sit next to her on the porch.

      Warren says that he's always been kind to Silas but refuses to hire him again; he told Silas he'd never take him back after he'd left in the middle of the previous haying season. He's useless, Warran says; no one would hire someone as old and unreliable as Silas, who would always disappear right when Warren needed him most. Last year, Silas had argued that he deserved some extra money to buy things like tobacco, but Warren had told him that he, unfortunately, couldn't afford it. Silas declared that someone else would be willing to pay him fixed wages, and Warren told him he'd have to go and find that person then. If it had just been about Silas simply trying to improve his lot in life, Warren wouldn't have been bothered by him leaving; but really, Warren says, whenever Silas starts demanding more money it's just because someone else is trying to lure him away with promises of some extra cash during the haying season, when hired help is in high demand. Meanwhile, Silas only comes back to Warren's farm in the winter (i.e., when the haying season is over). As such, Warren is through with him.

      Mary warns her husband to be quiet, lest Silas hear them talking, but Warren doesn't care.

      Mary says that Silas is totally exhausted and sleeping next to the stove inside the house. She'd come home to find him completely passed out in front of the barn, looking miserable. The sight of him had frightened her (something that, to Mary's frustration, makes Warren laugh) because she hadn't been expecting to see him and didn't realize who he was at first. Once Warren sees him, he'll understand that Silas is different now.

      Warren asks where Silas had come from, but Mary doesn't know. She'd brought him inside, tended to him, and tried to get him to explain where he'd been, but the exhausted Silas just kept falling asleep.

      Warren presses Mary, who again insists that Silas didn't say much.

      Warren keeps pressing Mary, assuming that Silas told her that he'd come back in order to finish ditching the meadow (he suspects that Silas just isn't able to find work anywhere else and wants to return to a place of steady employment).

      Mary confirms that this is what Silas said but then scolds Warren, rhetorically asking what else he'd want from Silas and urging him to let the farmhand reclaim his dignity by finishing the job he'd started. She adds that Silas also offered to clear the upper pasture. Noticing that Warren remains unmoved and unsurprised, she describes the pitiful scene further: in the farmhand's confusion, he'd jumbled his words, leading Mary to think he might be sleeptalking due to his extreme exhaustion. Silas couldn't stop talking about Harold Wilson, who was a college student who worked on the farm four years ago (and now teaches at his old school). In the old farmhand's exhausted and delusional state, he raved about the possibility of Mary and Silas bringing Wilson back to work on the farm and making it better than ever before. He thought highly of Wilson, even though he considered the younger man to be a little over-educated. Mary recalls how the two farmhands argued all through July as they harvested and loaded up bushels of hay under the hot sun.

      While Warren also remembers their fights, he notes that he deliberately didn't get involved.

      Mary was surprised to learn that the sting of those days four years ago still bothers Silas. She tells Warren that Harold Wilson's self-assuredness annoyed the older farmhand. Silas talked about how, even after all these years, he replayed old arguments with the younger farmhand in his head, thinking of all the things he could have said. Mary sympathizes with him because she—like everyone—has had the same experience. He associated Wilson with Latin because the boy enjoyed the language and chose to study it just as one might study the violin; Silas asked Mary for her opinion on studying something just for the fun of it, contrasting Wilson's formal education against his complete lack of practical knowledge and disbelief in rural traditions and superstitions (like the practice of finding water with a forked stick). At the end of the day, Silas wanted to teach Wilson the working-class, honest skills he valued himself, like building a load of hay.

      Even Warren admits that Silas was an organized worker who carefully kept track of every bundle of hay so he could easily find and unload them later. He was good at that, Warren says again; he put as much effort as possible into the difficult task of unloading the hay bales by lifting them from their cart.

      Silas valued these humble skills and thought that if he could pass them down to Harold Wilson, he might actually have more luck in life; he considered Wilson's education a waste. But Mary notes that despite Silas's attention to other people's situations, he didn't plan his own life out particularly well—he had no real successes to be proud of or look forward to, and it's the same case now.

      As the moon sets in the sky, it casts its light across the landscape. Mary spreads her apron as though to catch the moonlight in her lap and then touches a nearby morning-glory plant covered in dew. The plant's long tendrils are like the strings of a harp on which Mary plays gentle music to move her husband. She attempts to win Warren over to her side by explaining the tragedy of Silas's situation and describing how ill the old man is. She tells her husband that Silas isn't trying to trick him, the farmhand just wants to return to his home, a place that mattered to him, before he dies.

      Warren laughs at her for describing the farm as Silas's home, but Mary doubles down and pushes Warren to think about what home actually means. She compares the farmhand to a poor lost dog who happened upon their homestead.

      Warren defines home as a place that's obligated to take you in.

      Mary argues that even though she and Warren aren't bound by blood or contractual obligation to Silas—home isn't something that's deserved or earned, but instead a basic right.

      Warren fidgets, playing with a stick as he brings up Silas's family. He argues that Silas should have sought refuge from his brother who lives thirteen miles away—less than the distance Silas traveled to reach Mary and Warren. This is not just any brother, either, but a rich and successful banker.

      Silas never told his employers about his brother, though they were aware of him anyway.

      Mary theorizes that—since family members do have a kind of obligation to each other—Silas and his brother are likely estranged, although she hopes that his brother might be kinder than he seems. She tells Warren to cut Silas some slack. If not for the tension between the two, Silas probably would've mentioned his brother to Mary and Warren in the course of normal conversation (and he likely would've asked his brother for help instead of them).

      As Mary and Warren try and figure out the nature of the conflict between Silas and his brother, Mary imagines that he's the kind of person successful family members can't stand: even though he doesn't have the career his brother does, he has pride in himself and refuses to beg his brother for help.

      Warren agrees that Silas never caused anyone any harm, though Mary says that the pitiful sight of him sitting, exhausted, on an uncomfortable chair inside the house hurt her heart. Even in his extreme exhaustion, he refused to let Mary put him on the lounge. She tells Warren to check on the farmhand and see if he can convince him to take the bed that Mary made up, although she warns her husband that Silas is terribly worn out—and certainly no longer capable of manual labor.

      Warren gently scoffs at her, but she insists he go to see Silas for himself. In an attempt to help Silas save his pride, she reminds Warren of the farmhand's stated plan to help finish ditching the meadow—something Silas may or may not bring up when Warren sees him—and tells her husband not to mock him. Then she waits, watching a cloud stream past the moon, for her husband's return.

      The cloud seems to collide with the moon. The silvery could, the moon, and Mary form a little trio in the landscape.

      Warren quickly returns and holds Mary's hand in a bid to comfort her.

      He doesn't tell her the bad news until she asks: during the course of their conversation, Silas died.

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Themes

    • Theme Justice, Mercy, and Forgiveness

      Justice, Mercy, and Forgiveness

      Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" narrates an argument between a farmer and his wife: Mary tries to convince her husband, Warren, to hire back Silas, a former farmhand who disappointed the couple in the past by disappearing when they needed him. At the end of his life, the mortally ill Silas returns to the farm so he can meet the terms of his contract with Warren. Although Mary takes pity on Silas and feels that she and Warren should give him a second chance, her husband disagrees. When Mary finally manages to convince Warren, it's too late: Silas has already died. The poem suggests that reconciliation and forgiveness are matters of life and death—and that humility, patience, and mercy are more valuable than pure, unfeeling justice.

      Since Silas broke his contract last year, Warren considers his reluctance to hire the farmhand back a completely fair and just response. If their working relationship was based on that contract, and Silas broke the agreement, Warren feels he's been released from any obligation to Silas. This is an unemotional, legalistic reading of the two men's relationship (and responsibility) to each other.

      Mary, on the other hand, believes in a Christian model of forgiveness. Although she acknowledges that Silas has done wrong, she has faith in his fundamental goodness, his past hard work, and his ability to change his behavior. She thus argues that she and Warren should allow "the poor old man" "some humble way to save his self-respect"—in other words, they should let him return to the farm despite the fact that he broke his promise, trusting that he's sorry for what he's done and wants to make amends. While Warren bases his decisions on a sense of obligation and justice, Mary is more merciful.

      Ultimately, Warren's beliefs result in Silas’s death; Warren refuses to allow Silas in until it is too late. This a tragedy that the poem suggests could have been averted if Warren had tempered his idea of justice with some of Mary's mercy. Both Silas's efforts to make up for his past failings and Warren and Mary's attempts to understand each other suggest that the poem sees Mary's more compassionate and merciful perspective as essential; pure, unemotive, tit-for-tat "justice" isn't truly just.

    • Theme Home and Belonging

      Home and Belonging

      When the ill and impoverished farmhand Silas returns to his former employers Warren and Mary, trying to make amends for a contract he broke, he sparks a debate between the couple. Warren feels that Silas should have gone to his brother for help, seeking a home with blood relations; Mary argues that home is something that you make, not something you’re born into. The poem explores the meaning of "home," ultimately agreeing with Mary: people create homes through choice, effort, love, and generosity.

      Warren seems to believe that a feeling of "home" is based on obligation: home is where "they have to take you in." Such obligations, in his view, are formed through blood ties. He argues that Silas should call upon his rich brother, a "director in the bank," instead of coming back to the farm.

      Mary, on the other hand, believes that, as Silas's past employers, they should accept his return and treat it as a homecoming, making him feel welcome. Despite the fact that Silas breached his contract, Mary still feels a responsibility towards him: to her, home is "something you somehow haven't to deserve," a freely given and loving gift. Silas also seems to see home more in the way Mary does than the way Warren does. He returns to Mary and Warren rather than going to his own brother, suggesting that his sense of home is defined by chosen loyalties and affection, not by duty or blood.

      Although Warren feels that Silas owes him for leaving the farm, then, Mary suggests that she and Warren in fact owe Silas in his hour of need. She describes the farm as Silas's "home," arguing that even though Silas may not have any blood relation to them, they still have an obligation to him. This isn't a contractual obligation, but a moral effort that they can (and, in Mary's opinion, should) choose to make.

    • Theme Class and Status

      Class and Status

      Like many of Robert Frost's works, this poem suggests that class creates artificial (and harmful) divisions between people. The class difference between the landowning Mary and Warren and the laborer Silas means that the couple has disproportionate power over their employee. Silas's own regrets about how he dealt with a younger but more educated farm hand and his estrangement from his rich brother further demonstrate how class hierarchy distorts and damages human relationships.

      Mary and Warren employ Silas; as a result, they have more power than he does and can choose to let him return or cast him out. As a result of this class and power imbalance, Warren's sympathy for Silas is tempered by his perception of their relationship. Because he sees Silas as a mere employee rather than a fellow human being, he at first refuses to show him any mercy or understanding.

      Class differences also damage Silas's relationship with his wealthy and successful brother. Mary and Warren speculate that Silas refuses to go to him for help because the two are estranged: because Silas is a farmhand and his brother is a banker, the class gulf between them makes it painful or difficult for Silas to relate to him.

      Similarly, the class division between Silas and Harold Smith, a college-educated farmhand who helped Silas out during an earlier haying season, contributed to tension between the two workers. Although Silas regrets their conflict at the end of his life, Mary states that "Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him." Harold's education, the poem implies, likely made him a bit of a snob and prevented him and Silas from fully understanding or connecting with each other.

      Last but not least, although the poem doesn't explicitly explore a class division between Mary and Warren—since they're married, they're in the same economic position—Warren's gender seems to make him the head of the household. While Mary eventually manages to convince him to allow Silas to stay, Warren is the one who ultimately makes the decisions. The speaker may be suggesting that the power imbalance between the two contributes to their differences in philosophy and opinion.

      Class differences—and the differences in power that they create—fracture all of these relationships, causing harm to everyone involved (regardless of their position).

    • Theme 
The Value of Hard Work

      
The Value of Hard Work

      "The Death of the Hired Man" questions the value of hard work. Although the farmhand Silas tries to complete the work he left undone (and thus to give himself some sense of purpose before his death), his efforts are ultimately fruitless. Work seems to have given him a sense of community and kinship with his employers, Mary and Warren. Since Warren doesn't return this sentiment until it's too late, however, the speaker questions the foundations of what Silas believes in.

      All the poem's characters value hard work—and judge each other on the basis of that work. Although Warren initially doesn't remember Silas as a good farmhand due to his breach of contract, Mary reminds him that Silas used to work very hard. This reminder makes Warren begin to appreciate Silas, and eventually allows Mary to convince him to let the farmhand stay.

      Silas, too, remembers his days of hard work fondly and feels guilty for breaking his contract and failing in his duty to the farm and his employers. Despite being mortally ill, he chooses to come back to the farm and promises to complete as much work as he can, showing that he’s seriously committed to hard work as a value even though he hasn't lived up to his own standards in the past. Even though he's on death’s door and "his working days are done," his sense that work is meaningful means he tries to fulfill his promise anyway.

      Hard work, in these people's world, is thus valuable in itself, a sign of good character, and a way of showing loyalty and care. Yet despite the characters' positive views on the value of work, the poem itself seems a little more skeptical. Silas is ultimately unable to return to work; he dies before Warren relents and allows him to come home. Without other human values like compassion and forgiveness, the poem suggests, hard work is only worth so much.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Death of the Hired Man”

    • Lines 1-10

      Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
      Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
      She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
      To meet him in the doorway with the news
      And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’
      She pushed him outward with her through the door
      And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.
      She took the market things from Warren’s arms
      And set them on the porch, then drew him down
      To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

      The speaker beings this long narrative poem with a stanza of exposition that sets the scene: a woman named Mary is sitting by a table waiting for her husband Warren to get home from "the market," so that she can inform him that the couple's old farmhand, Silas, has returned.

      The way the speaker describes Mary's temperament and actions—she sits "musing on the lamp-flame at the table," revealing her calm and patience, then runs "on tip-toe" to meet her husband "in the doorway" and "put him on his guard"—gives readers some clues as to Mary's personality, the relationship between Mary and Warren, and the context behind the couple's relationship with Silas.

      Mary tries to direct her husband: she physically pushes him through the door, then orders him to "be kind" before removing groceries from his arms and pulling him down to sit next to her. These actions grant readers a sense of the dynamic between the two: while readers can assume that Warren is the "man of the house" and likely has the power to make decisions, Mary holds her own. She has a certain view of the world and attempts to get her husband to share her perspective. The fact that Mary seems keen to break the news about Silas to her husband gently suggests a kind of tension around the farmhand's return; it certainly doesn't seem like Warren is going to be happy that Silas is back.

      This stanza also establishes the poem's form. "The Death of the Hired Man" is written in a subtle blank verse: unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a meter in which each line of verse contains five iambs, poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern. Take lines 9-10:

      She took | the mar- | ket things | from War- | ren's arms
      And set | them on | the porch, | then drew | him down
      To sit | beside | her on | the wood- | en steps.

      The meter contains plenty of variations, which is common for blank verse and keeps the poem from sounding overly stiff or formal. Take lines 1 and 2, both of which open with a trochee (the opposite of an iamb, following a stressed-unstressed syllable pattern): "Mary," "Waiting." Variations like this keep the poem's language sounding natural and even quite prose-like.

    • Lines 11-21

      ‘When was I ever anything but kind to him?
      But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said.
      ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
      If he left then, I said, that ended it.
      What good is he? Who else will harbor him
      At his age for the little he can do?
      What help he is there’s no depending on.
      Off he goes always when I need him most.
      He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
      Enough at least to buy tobacco with,
      So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.

    • Lines 22-30

      “All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay
      Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.”
      “Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.”
      I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself
      If that was what it was. You can be certain,
      When he begins like that, there’s someone at him
      Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—
      In haying time, when any help is scarce.
      In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’

    • Lines 31-39

      ‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.
      ‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’
      ‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.
      When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,
      Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
      A miserable sight, and frightening, too—
      You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him—
      I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.
      Wait till you see.’

    • Lines 40-50

                                ‘Where did you say he’d been?’
      ‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,
      And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
      I tried to make him talk about his travels.
      Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’
      ‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’
      ‘But little.’
                      ‘Anything? Mary, confess
      He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’
      ‘Warren!’
                    ‘But did he? I just want to know.’

    • Lines 51-60

      ‘Of course he did. What would you have him say?
      Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man
      Some humble way to save his self-respect.
      He added, if you really care to know,
      He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
      That sounds like something you have heard before?
      Warren, I wish you could have heard the way
      He jumbled everything. I stopped to look
      Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—
      To see if he was talking in his sleep.

    • Lines 61-73

      He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—
      The boy you had in haying four years since.
      He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.
      Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.
      He says they two will make a team for work:
      Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!
      The way he mixed that in with other things.
      He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
      On education—you know how they fought
      All through July under the blazing sun,
      Silas up on the cart to build the load,
      Harold along beside to pitch it on.’
      ‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’

    • Lines 74-90

      ‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
      You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!
      Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.
      After so many years he still keeps finding
      Good arguments he sees he might have used.
      I sympathize. I know just how it feels
      To think of the right thing to say too late.
      Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.
      He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying
      He studied Latin like the violin
      Because he liked it—that an argument!
      He said he couldn’t make the boy believe
      He could find water with a hazel prong—
      Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
      He wanted to go over that. But most of all
      He thinks if he could have another chance
      To teach him how to build a load of hay—’

    • Lines 91-115

      ‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.
      He bundles every forkful in its place,
      And tags and numbers it for future reference,
      So he can find and easily dislodge it
      In the unloading. Silas does that well.
      He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.
      You never see him standing on the hay
      He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’
      ‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be
      Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
      He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
      Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
      And nothing to look backward to with pride,
      And nothing to look forward to with hope,
      So now and never any different.’
      Part of a moon was falling down the west,
      Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
      Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it
      And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
      Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
      Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
      As if she played unheard some tenderness
      That wrought on him beside her in the night.
      ‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die:
      You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’

    • Lines 116-134

      ‘Home,’ he mocked gently.
                                             ‘Yes, what else but home?
      It all depends on what you mean by home.
      Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
      Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
      Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’
      ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
      They have to take you in.’
                                            ‘I should have called it
      Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’
      Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
      Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
      And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
      ‘Silas has better claim on us you think
      Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
      As the road winds would bring him to his door.
      Silas has walked that far no doubt today.
      Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,
      A somebody—director in the bank.’

    • Lines 135-152

      ‘He never told us that.’
                                        ‘We know it though.’
      ‘I think his brother ought to help, of course.
      I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right
      To take him in, and might be willing to—
      He may be better than appearances.
      But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
      If he’d had any pride in claiming kin
      Or anything he looked for from his brother,
      He’d keep so still about him all this time?’
      ‘I wonder what’s between them.’
                                                      ‘I can tell you.
      Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—
      But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.
      He never did a thing so very bad.
      He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good
      As anyone. Worthless though he is,
      He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’

    • Lines 153-161


      I
       can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’
      ‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
      And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
      He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.
      You must go in and see what you can do.
      I made the bed up for him there tonight.
      You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.
      His working days are done; I'm sure of it.’
      ‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’

    • Lines 162-175

      ‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.
      But, Warren, please remember how it is:
      He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
      He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
      He may not speak of it, and then he may.
      I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
      Will hit or miss the moon.’
                                            It hit the moon.
      Then there were three there, making a dim row,
      The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.
      Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,
      Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.
      ‘Warren,’ she questioned.
                                           ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Symbols

    • Symbol The Moon

      The Moon

      Although this poem doesn't make extensive use of figurative language or symbolism, the moon looming across the sky might be interpreted as a symbol of Silas's looming death. The speaker describes the moon as "falling down" and "Dragging the whole sky with it," an image that makes the moon feel heavy and foreboding and which also mirrors that of Silas slumping down outside Mary and Warren's barn Shortly after a "little silver cloud" passes in front of the moon at the poem's end, Warren announces that Silas has died. The moon being pierced or hidden by a cloud seems to reflect Silas passing from the world of the living.

      The moon is also linked with Mary's mercy. Its first mention appears when Mary begins to successfully persuade Warren to have some mercy for Silas: its light pours "in her lap" and she gently "spread[s] her apron to it." Seeming to hold the moonlight perhaps reflects Mary's capacity for pity and forgiveness.

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Simile

      "The Death of the Hired Man" is a narrative poem filled with dialogue, and much of its language is literal. This grounds the poem in the real world and keeps the focus on the conundrum Mary and Warren face (that is, whether or not to take Silas back). That said, the poem does contain some similes and metaphors that help to add drama, establish the relationship between its characters, and bring the poem's imagery to life.

      For example, in one of the poem's rare third-person passages that step outside of the dialogue between Warren and Mary, the speaker uses an extended simile to describe Mary's mercy and persuasive power through her close relationship with nature:

      • First, the speaker compares the strings of the flowering morning glory plant to those of a harp. This sets up the second part of the simile where Mary puts "out her hand [...] As if she played unheard some tenderness / That wrought on him beside her in the night."
      • Although the plant isn't actually a harp and she's not actually playing it, the simile creates a vivid image that illustrates the mysterious power of Mary's mercy.
      • Through this figurative image, the speaker effectively demonstrates how Mary's kindness sways her husband away from his black-and-white view of justice and contractual obligation. She's playing not just the morning glory "strings," but also those of her husband's heart.

      A little later in the poem, when Mary describes Silas's relationship to the farm, she remarks:

      Of course he's nothing to us, any more
      Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
      Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.

      By using analogy to compare Silas to a tired, lost dog wandering in the woods, Mary highlights the pathos of his situation. More importantly, however, she makes the point that even if the farmhand had never worked for them, she and Warren owe him a basic degree of sympathy and care. Warren likely wouldn't turn away a homeless hound, so why does he feel justified in turning away a human being in need of help?

    • Personification

    • Dialogue

    • Alliteration

  • "The Death of the Hired Man" Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Haying
    • Beholden
    • Coax
    • Ditch the meadow
    • Clear the upper pasture
    • Pitch
    • Piqued
    • Hazel prong
    • Dislodge
    • Morning-glory
    • Wrought
    • Kin/kinsfolk
    • Row
    • Haying refers to the harvesting of grass so it can be stored and dried into hay, but can also refer to the season for the harvest.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Death of the Hired Man”

    • Form

      Like many of Robert Frost's poems, "The Death of the Hired Man" doesn't fit into a traditional form. It is broken up into multiple stanzas (i.e., lines 1-10 and lines 11-30), but it takes its shape and structure from the nature of the dialogue between Warren and Mary. The poem also uses a loose blank verse, another Frost favorite: lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter (more on that in the Meter section of this guide).

      Altogether, the poem's lack of any strict form makes it feel more like a transcription of a real conversation. There are times when readers would be forgiven for forgetting this that long narrative poem is, in fact, a poem!

    • Meter

      "The Death of the Hired Man" uses loose blank verse: lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter. An iamb is a poetic foot that follows an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern, while pentameter means there are five of these feet in a line (for a total of 10 syllables). Here's how this pattern looks in lines 8-9, for example:

      She took | the mar- | ket things | from War- | ren's arms
      And set | them on | the porch, | then drew | him down

      Iambic meters mimic the natural patterns of spoken English. Here, the meter largely fades into the background, adding to the poem's naturalistic feel. The meter isn't overly strict, either; variations keep the language sounding conversational and dynamic. Take line 1, which is highly irregular:

      Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table

      It's hard to discern any iambic rhythm here at all, in fact, which perhaps subtly conveys Mary's nervous energy as she awaits her husband's return.

      By contrast, some lines that certainly look like they're breaking the poem's meter are not. Take lines 46-47: on their own, each is far too short to fit the poem's meter. But put them tovether, and you've got almost perfect iambic pentameter:

      'But lit- | tle.' 'A- | nything? | Mary, | confess

    • Rhyme Scheme

      "The Death of the Hired Man" doesn't follow a rhyme scheme. In fact, there aren't any strong slant rhymes or internal rhymes in the poem at all. Obvious rhyme might distract from the naturalistic, even plain quality of his characters' conversation. Even when the speaker interjects with more traditionally poetic descriptions of the farmhands' environment, the language is still relatively prose-like. This is in keeping with Frost's style, which rejects a lot of poetic conventions in favor of representing conversations and people "as they really are."

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Speaker

    • "The Death of the Hired Man" relays an argument between Warren and Mary primarily in their own words. As such, the third-person "speaker" of the poem barely appears. When the speaker does appear, they seem to be a relatively neutral, omniscient third party. Instead of commenting on either of the farm owners' worldviews, they set the scene by narrating the couple's movements (as in the beginning of the poem, when Mary sits at the table waiting for Warren) or the environment around them (the movements of the moon and clouds in the night sky).

      Mary and Warren's dialogue sounds quite natural and conversational and grants readers insight into both characters' personalities and worldviews: Mary is quicker to sympathize and forgive, whereas Warren clings to more rigid ideals of justice and obligation. The conflict between these two worldviews shapes the conflict at the heart of the poem: whether or not to welcome Silas back to the farm.

      The speaker's interjections, meanwhile, provide the poem with its more lyrical and figurative components (for example, the beautiful, highly illustrative personifications of the moon, the clouds, and the plants around Mary). The speaker also describes Mary and her relationship with nature more extensively than they describe Warren. Although the speaker doesn't actively take a side, this difference in the way they treat the poem's two central characters suggests that the speaker—and, perhaps, Frost himself—is more aligned with Mary's gentle and forgiving point of view (especially since Mary seems to be significantly closer to the natural world the speaker describes with such care).

  • “The Death of the Hired Man” Setting

    • Although this poem's setting is never explicitly laid out, the conversation between Mary and Warren obviously takes place on the couple's farm, which is likely located in a rural area. Given the college student Harold Wilson's previous employment on the farm, however, there may be schools—specifically, institutions of higher education—relatively nearby. Based on all this information, it is possible (especially given Frost's own background and favored subject matter) that this poem is set somewhere in the greater New England area. The setting creates a clear tension between "hired men" like Silas and Harold, one of whom relies on farm labor as his main source of income and the other who, presumably, is using farmwork as a temporary gig while getting an education.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “The Death of the Hired Man”

    • Literary Context

      Robert Frost is one of the most notable figures of American poetry and letters. Fascinated by philosophy, he frequently addressed broad existential themes like morality, religion, life, and death in his work. His family was originally from New England, and he spent much of his young life in Massachusetts; he became famous for writing about the Northeast.

      Frost consistently shied away from associating with any one particular school of writing. Instead, his work is notable for its ability to incorporate various traditions while remaining highly accessible. Compared to the very deliberate departures from traditional forms that his modernist contemporaries like T. S. Eliot were making, Frost was not particularly interested in innovation for innovation's sake. His poetry typically blends traditional poetic techniques and meters with frank, contemporary language and focuses on the intersections between nature and working-class rural life.

      "The Death of the Hired Man" was written in 1905 or 1906 but first publicly appeared in 1914 as part of Frost's New England-focused collection North of Boston.

      Historical Context

      Though he lived through both World War I and II and saw many significant social and political shifts in his lifetime, Frost hardly ever wrote directly about history or politics. Instead, Frost's poetry is known for dealing with rural New England life and identity. Having lived and worked on a New Hampshire farm from 1900-1912, Frost's interest in rural life, nature, and New England is an extension of his time working the land in what he considered to be the best part of America.

      With an eye for austerity and tragedy, Frost's work is known for its realism, particularly as it pertains to the difficulties of rural life and the indifference of nature. Like many poets of his time, Frost had a somewhat pessimistic view of the modern world that was perhaps intensified by his own significant personal losses. His father died of tuberculosis when he was only 11, leaving behind only eight dollars for the family. His mother died of cancer five years later, in 1900, and in 1920 his younger sister was committed to a psychiatric institution, where she later died. Both Frost and his wife also struggled with depression.

      In spite of, or more like because of, these personal trials, Frost wrote diligently about individuals searching for meaning and finding, most often in nature, some kind of mirror for their own situations. His poems tend to highlight ordinary moments in which extraordinary or profound insights occur.

  • More “The Death of the Hired Man” Resources