A Question

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A Question

by Robert Frost

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

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This is one of Frost’s shorter poems and it’s also one of his best, in my opinion. The brevity fits the subject matter – which is as the title says, a question.

The poem is four lines long, the rhyme scheme is ABAB, and the meter is four beats per line.

Frost asks if the pain of life is too much to make being born worthwhile. The framing of the question – focusing on the scars rather than joy and success – has the effect of putting a thumb on the scale of ‘no’ as the answer. However, the framing of the question should also stir up a counter-argument in many Readers. (It would not be much of a question if the third line read “If all the joy-and-chocolate bars”).

One common interpretation of the poem has God as the one asking the question to His creation. This fits well with Line 1 (who else do you talk to up in the stars?), Line 2 inasmuch as it is addressed to “men of earth,” and Line 3, where the questioner also brings up the Reader’s soul.

If we assume God asks the question, then we are invited to ask why. Is the question an exercise for mankind in learning to look for beauty in the midst of hardship? Or is the question a mechanism to get man to look up and away from suffering, to a place of beauty and rest?

Needles to say that Frost accomplishes a lot in a very short poem. Hopefully the Reader does as well.