Ploughing on Sunday — Summary

Wallace Stevens turns a farm scene into something close to a children’s rhyme or a work chant. The speaker is out ploughing on a Sunday, a day usually set aside for rest, and he sounds delighted rather than guilty. Wind and water fill the landscape: a white cock’s tail tosses, a turkey-cock’s tail glitters and spreads, and the repeated line “Water in the fields. / The wind pours down” gives the whole poem a feeling of bright, restless motion. The call to Remus to blow his horn adds a note of playful announcement, as if the ploughing deserves music or noise. By saying he is “Ploughing North America,” the speaker turns ordinary labor into something vast and almost mythic. The nonsense rhythm—“Tum-ti-tum”—keeps the mood light and song-like. It’s a poem of exuberance, weather, and work enjoyed as a kind of play.