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 sunburned 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.


About this poem
"The Vantage Point" was published in Robert Frost's debut collection of poems, "A Boy's Will" (H.Holt & Co., 1915).

About Robert Frost
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. He received the Pulitzer Prize four times and read at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. Some of his collections include "Mountain Interval" (1916), "A Further Range" (1936) and "A Witness Tree" (1942). Frost lived and taught for many years in Massachusetts and Vermont, and died in Boston on Jan. 29, 1963.

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This poem is in the public domain. Distributed by King Features Syndicate