The Vantage Point

"The Vantage Point" by Robert Frost

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 bruisèd plant,

I look into the crater of the ant.

Frost's "The Vantage Point" is a Petrarchan sonnet. This is evident by the organization of the lines into two quatrains (or an octave) and two tercets (or a sestet). The rhyme scheme is fairly regular for the form: ABBA ABBA CDD CEE. In this way, there aren't really any heavy modifications that Frost makes on the form. The volta, in true Petrarchan form, comes with the change from the quatrains to the tercets. In the beginning, Frost writes about observes the neighboring little town and the men who live and die there. At the volta, he tires of man and turns to observe nature. Frost's use of the form is to convey a single idea which has two separate manifestations. The octave and the sestet may express his desire to observe man and nature respectively, but together they form a picture of Frost (or our speaker) as a lonely observer of the world. He participates not in the world of man nor the world of nature; the most profound effect he has is shaking a flower "like the breeze" with his breath. In a way, the poem is a beautiful pastoral, worshiping the beauty of man and nature together, but on the other hand, it is a sad portrait of someone so removed from life that they simply stay in one spot and pivot to see the world.