A Soldier
Robert Frost
He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark,
It is because like men we look too near,
Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,
Our missiles always make too short an arc.
They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect
The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;
They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.
But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.
VOCABULARY
Lance - a long weapon similar to a spear, with a sharp point on the end. Often used
by knights or soldiers that ride on horseback (for instance with knights who joust, or
cavalry in war). In terms of etymology, the word ‘Lance’ also comes from the Roman
word ‘lancea’, meaning a spear or javelin.
Hurled - strongly or violently thrown
Dew - condensation that forms droplets of water on surfaces outdoors overnight
Rust - the decayed surface of iron as it oxidises, forming a red-brown colour
Ploughed - two meanings; in farming, it means to turn over soil in preparation for
sowing seeds, in other terms in means to move quickly and forcefully through
something
Missiles - objects, often weapons, that are projected through the air to a specified
target in order to cause disruption
Intersect - the action of two separate lines or objects crossing each other’s paths
Obstacle - an object that presents a barrier or impediment to a goal or target
, STORY / SUMMARY
Lines 1-3: We are told about the plight of a soldier - he is lying on the ground as if he
has been ‘hurled’ through the air and landed. His body doesn’t move and he doesn’t
rise up, he stays lying down even when the dew covers him overnight, or when he
starts to ‘rust’ (decay). He is like a lance that was thrown and missed the target,
instead crashing into the ground and coming to rest in the dust.
Lines 3-6: If we try to trace the lance’s movement across the earth and see nothing
worth aiming for, i.e. no target or reason for it being thrown, it’s because we’re looking
for answers in the world on earth, whereas the answer is actually spiritual or in the
heavens. We forget that if we aim for some earthly and immediate reason, we’ll always
miss the true target of perfection.
Lines 7-11: As we throw missiles, they will land back down to earth because they are
‘fitted to the sphere’, the law of gravity controls them and forces them to fall back to
the ground. They tear through grass and through the surface of the earth when they
fall, breaking themselves in the process. The scraping sound as the metal of the lance
crashes into the stone of the earth ‘make[s] us cringe’, because it is painful to hear the
missile failing to hit its mark.
Lines 12-14: Despite this, we know that the same force or ‘obstacle’ that caused the
physical body to crash back to earth propelled the spirit towards the sky. If the
intended target was a star that ‘showed or shone’ in the sky, then the actual end point
of the soul is even greater than a person on earth could have imagined.
SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker talks abstractly, rather than specifically about any particular soldier or
war. This is reinforced by the vague title - ‘A Soldier’, the soldier is unnamed and
unspecified, as well as the indefinite pronoun ‘a’ demonstrating that it could be one
of many possible soldiers. Instead of commenting on specific wars that have just
passed, Frost uses the poem to explore the concepts of war and heroism, making us
realise that the tragedy of a soldier’s death can be far less significant than the good
they brought to the world through their efforts. The speaker appears to have a
highly patriotic tone; he believes that a soldier’s soul is propelled straight to the
heavens at the moment of death - their heroic sacrifices live on through the memory
