The Natural History of Selborne

The Poet of Nature lets few rural incidents escape him. In his Summer he mentions the whetting of a scythe as a pleasing circumstance, not from the real sound, which is harsh, grating, & unmusical; but from the train of summer ideas which it raises in the imagination. No one who loves his garden & lawn but rejoices to hear the sound of the mower on an early, dewy morning.–

“Echo no more returns the chearful sound
Of sharpening scythe.”

Milton also, as a pleasing summer-morning occurrence, says,

…”the mower whets his scythe.”

— L’Allegro