But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
The metaphoric imagery of ‘leaping tongue of bloom’ describes the flowers as a mouth and a voice about to speak, symbolising the nature’s capacity to express itself to humanity through beauty, perhaps answering the narrator’s questions. It represents the collaboration of nature and language, which previously yielded “no reply” with the butterfly. Frost is suggesting that we can understand  what Morrissey wants us to.  It also adds a sense of colour and vitality against the mown landscape – the stream was once hidden but is now revealed because the grass is now short. Sibilant synecdoche ‘scythe had spared’. The spared flowers are a metaphor for the ‘old verities’ of the human condition (research).
The Tuft of Flowers