Robert Frost: "The Vantage Point"

This is one of Robert Frost's earlier poems.  It appeared in his first collection of poetry,  A Boy's Will, which was published in April 1913 in London.



The Vantage Point

If tired of trees I seek again mankind,
   Well I know where to hie me--in the dawn,
    To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
There amid lolling juniper reclined,
Myself unseen, I see in white defined
    Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
    The graves of men on an opposing hill,
Living or dead, whichever are to mind.

And if by noon I have too much of these,
    I have but to turn on my arm, and lo,
    The sun burned hillside sets my face aglow,
My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze,
    I smell the earth, I smell the bruised plant,
    I look into the crater of the ant.


I always have to be careful, if not wary, when reading a Frost poem.  I think I know what's going on, and then, at the end, he manages somehow to introduce a question as to just exactly what is going on here. This poem is no exception.  It seems very straightforward at first.  He is tired of looking at nature and wishes to see something of humankind. And, he knows the spot from where he can see homes and also cattle owned by humans.  But, then, there's those ". . . graves of men on an opposing hill."  He can think of  humans "Living or dead, whichever are to mind."   This strikes me as being a strange way when  "tired of trees"  to contemplate humankind.  To me, anyway, it suggests some sort of ambiguity in his attitude towards  his fellow humans.  It seems the only differences between the living and the dead are the ways in which one wishes to think of them or as Frost puts it --"whichever are to mind."

The second stanza now reverses his original thought, and now he's tired of humankind. He once again selects nature,  and all that is required is "to turn on my arm."  This is a very nice vantage point.  Now he has a view of nature--sun, earth, plants.  Then, comes the last line, the end of the poem:  "I look into the crater of the ant."  Is he drawing a comparison between the human habitations and the crater of the ant?  As is typical with Frost, one may think he's providing answers, but there's always that last line.