birches by robert frost essay

Birches Summary & Analysis by Robert Frost

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

Robert Frost wrote "Birches" between 1913 and 1914, eventually publishing it in The Atlantic Monthly 's August issue in 1915. The poem was later included in Frost's third collection of poetry, Mountain Interval . Consisting of 59 lines of blank verse , the poem features a speaker who likes to imagine that the reason ice-covered birch trees are stooped is that a young boy has been climbing them and swinging to the ground while holding onto the flexible treetops. This, it eventually becomes clear, is something the speaker once did as a child, and this turns the poem into a nostalgic celebration of youthful joy while also juxtaposing childish spontaneity with the more serious, mundane realities of adulthood.

• Read the full text of “Birches”

The Full Text of “Birches”

1 When I see birches bend to left and right

2 Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

3 I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

4 But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

5 As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

6 Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

7 After a rain. They click upon themselves

8 As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

9 As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

10 Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

11 Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

12 Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

13 You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

14 They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

15 And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

16 So low for long, they never right themselves:

17 You may see their trunks arching in the woods

18 Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

19 Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

20 Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

21 But I was going to say when Truth broke in

22 With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

23 I should prefer to have some boy bend them

24 As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

25 Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

26 Whose only play was what he found himself,

27 Summer or winter, and could play alone.

28 One by one he subdued his father's trees

29 By riding them down over and over again

30 Until he took the stiffness out of them,

31 And not one but hung limp, not one was left

32 For him to conquer. He learned all there was

33 To learn about not launching out too soon

34 And so not carrying the tree away

35 Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

36 To the top branches, climbing carefully

37 With the same pains you use to fill a cup

38 Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

39 Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

40 Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

41 So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

42 And so I dream of going back to be.

43 It's when I'm weary of considerations,

44 And life is too much like a pathless wood

45 Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

46 Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

47 From a twig's having lashed across it open.

48 I'd like to get away from earth awhile

49 And then come back to it and begin over.

50 May no fate willfully misunderstand me

51 And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

52 Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

53 I don't know where it's likely to go better.

54 I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

55 And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

56 Toward  heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

57 But dipped its top and set me down again.

58 That would be good both going and coming back.

59 One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

“Birches” Summary

“birches” themes.

The Joy of Childhood

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

The Tedious Reality of Adulthood

Death, Spirituality, and Escape

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “birches”.

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do.

Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Lines 12-16

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves:

Lines 17-20

You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

Lines 21-27

But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows— Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone.

Lines 28-32

One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer.

Lines 32-40

He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

Lines 41-47

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open.

Lines 48-52

I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return.

Lines 52-56

Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward  heaven,

Lines 56-59

till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

“Birches” Symbols

Swinging from Birch Trees

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“Birches” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Personification

Juxtaposition, “birches” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Many-colored
• The inner dome of heaven
• Pathless wood
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Birches”

Rhyme scheme, “birches” speaker, “birches” setting, literary and historical context of “birches”, more “birches” resources, external resources.

The Robert Frost Farm — Read about Robert Frost's legacy in New England – where he swung from birches as a boy—and the farm  that bears his name!

Robert Frost Reads "Birches" — Hear the poet himself read "Birches" in this old recording.

Birch Swinging — Check out this video of somebody demonstrating how to swing from a birch tree.

The Poet's Life — For more information about Robert Frost, take a look at this brief overview of his life and work. 

Frost and the "Sound of Sense" — Learn more about Frost's thoughts on "sound of sense," a term he used to describe the significance of sound in poetry, especially when applied to straightforward but impassioned language.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Frost

Acquainted with the Night

After Apple-Picking

Desert Places

Dust of Snow

Fire and Ice

Home Burial

Mending Wall

My November Guest

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

The Death of the Hired Man

The Oven Bird

The Road Not Taken

The Sound of the Trees

The Tuft of Flowers

The Wood-Pile

Everything you need for every book you read.

A Summary and Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘Birches’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Originally titled ‘Swinging Birches’, the poem ‘Birches’ is one of Robert Frost’s most widely anthologised and studied poems, first published in 1915. Although Frost’s style is often direct and accessible, his poems are subtle and sometimes even ambiguous in their effects, so some words of analysis may be of use here.

You can read ‘Birches’ here before proceeding to our analysis of the poem below.

‘Birches’: summary and analysis

‘Birches’ draws on Robert Frost’s childhood memories of swinging on birch trees as a boy. In summary, the poem is a meditation on these trees, which are supple (i.e. easily bent) but strong (not easily broken). Contrasting the birches with ‘straighter darker trees’ which surround them, Frost says he likes to think they are bent because a boy has been swinging on them.

But he knows this is probably not the reason the birches bend: nature, and in particular that common feature of Frost’s poem (aptly, given his surname), cold wintry weather, is probably responsible.

Frost describes how birches, after an ice-storm, ‘click upon themselves’, when they are loaded down with ice on a winter morning. As the day begins to warm up, the sun causes the ice to melt, and the birches shed ‘crystal shells’ of ice, like ‘heaps of broken glass’ fallen from the glass dome of heaven.

Even if the birches are ‘dragged’ down to the level of the withered bracken near the ground, the birches don’t appear to break, although they don’t straighten up easily once they have been bent really low.

Frost uses vivid and unusual imagery to describe the appearance of the birches: the simile likening the bent birches to ‘girls on hands and knees’, drying their hair in the sun, is especially memorable. It anthropomorphises the trees, but it also reinforces the speaker’s association between the birches and childhood (his preference for believing, even in the face of contrary evidence, that the birches are bent because of boys riding them for play).

It is at this moment during the speaker’s fanciful musings that ‘Truth’ (personified with a capital T) breaks in on his reverie: in other words, the speaker knew he couldn’t entertain the romanticised notion for long that the birches had been bent by boys having fun among them, and he knows, deep down, that the ice-storm was the more likely cause. This bringing-down-to-earth of romantic attitudes towards nature is a common feature of Robert Frost’s poetry.

However, Frost quickly returns to entertaining the idea of a small boy, living in a rural area where he can’t join or form a baseball team with other boys his age, discovering the joys of riding the birches: taking the ‘stiffness’ out of them one by one.

The emphasis is on play as a way of learning : a boy growing up in a town may ‘learn baseball’, but Frost’s imaginary youth ‘learned all there was / To learn’ about judging how long he should remain on the birch before jumping off.

We then learn (as it were) that Frost’s speaker can entertain this image at such length because he himself used to swing on birches as a boy: be is reliving his childhood freedom and joy through the memory. He would like to go back to such boyish innocence.

When nature presents problems – he walks through a wood without a clear path and gets a face full of cobwebs, or a twig lashes across his eye – he dreams of getting back to the simplicity of birches, which he had learned to judge and bring under his control.

However, when Frost (or his poem’s speaker, at least) says that he would like to ‘come back to [nature] and begin over’, there’s a sense of wistfulness that extends far greater than birch-swinging, hinting at the adult’s vain yearning to return to childhood and live his life over again. However, the level-headed reasonableness returns, and the speaker says that he doesn’t really want to leave nature behind, as ‘Earth’s the right place for love’.

Nevertheless, when his time to die does come, he’d like to die while climbing a birch tree, climbing towards heaven (note the rare use of italics to emphasise the idea of moving away from the earth, and nature, towards death), until the birch tree swung him back down to earth at the last minute.

‘Birches’: form

‘Birches’ is written in blank verse : unrhymed iambic pentameter . This means that there are (usually) ten syllables per line, with the syllables arranged into five metrical feet, in this case iambs, which comprise an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

Frost was fond of using blank verse in his poetry: since it is close to the rhythms of regular human speech in the English language, it reflects his homespun, colloquial style. In the case of ‘Birches’, the unrhymed iambic pentameter rhythm suits the poem’s meditative, reflective mode.

About Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is regarded as one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century. And yet he didn’t belong to any particular movement: unlike his contemporaries William Carlos Williams or Wallace Stevens he was not a modernist, preferring more traditional modes and utilising a more direct and less obscure poetic language.

9 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘Birches’”

A very good analysis of a Robert Frost poem I was unfamiliar with.

I’ve often walked among birches and seen Frost’s white hair in their bark, felled large old specimens into 4′ cylinders which over the years lose their wood, but the bark tube lasts on and on.

Years ago I worked as a live-in personal attendant for a man who had been rendered quadraplegic in a diving accident at the age of 19. He’d grown up in a small rural town and had always been an active boy. After his injury he majored in English, and kept a large poster with Frost’s Birches on it, with a background of birch trees. It wasn’t until after he passed that I really read the poem, and understood my friend’s longing to once again be a “swinger of birches.” If there’s a God in heaven my friend is once again doing just that.

Thanks for sharing such a nice analysis.

Written in a homespun style, as you say. And yet I was jolted by the fate who might “willfully misunderstand me”. Can this be a classical reference to the fate who cuts the thread of life? It must be, and yet what is it doing in this rural reflection? And then, we go on to what looks very like a conceit – the elaborated metaphor of the birch-swinging poet going up and yet not too far, getting toward, but not arriving at, heaven; all expressed in the same homespun phrasing – “that would be good”, “one could do worse”. In the final, say, dozen lines Frost seems to be in the vernacular, but not of it – if that’s not too pretentious a way of putting it!

Frost’s ability to weave deep metaphors in seeming simple attributes of nature is astounding. His homespun profundities sneak up and wallop a person with insight.

This poem brings particular memories for me. We studied it at school (In the early 80s when I was 15). It was one of our set text for the public exam (O level in the UK). Our teacher interpreted as being a poem all about masturbation – and spent a full 20 minutes explaining this interpretation – much to our embarrassed adolescent amusement. Of course we all dreaded it coming up in the exam. Fortunately it didn’t. I’ve never yet come across a similar interpretation again. I love the poem… and I can still see my teacher’s point. I think he was using it to share something that would not normally be covered in an English class, but a valuable, dare I say ‘life skills’ lesson. That’s the amazing power of great literature.

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Greatly done🤗🤗

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Robert Frost: Poems

By robert frost, robert frost: poems summary and analysis of "birches" (1916).

When the narrator looks at the birch trees in the forest, he imagines that the arching bends in their branches are the result of a boy “swinging” on them. He realizes that the bends are actually caused by ice storms - the weight of the ice on the branches forces them to bend toward the ground - but he prefers his idea of the boy swinging on the branches, climbing up the tree trunks and swinging from side to side, from earth up to heaven. The narrator remembers when he used to swing on birches and wishes that he could return to those carefree days.

This poem is written in blank verse with a particular emphasis on the “sound of sense.” For example, when Frost describes the cracking of the ice on the branches, his selections of syllables create a visceral sense of the action taking place: “Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells / Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust — / Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away…”

Originally, this poem was called “Swinging Birches,” a title that perhaps provides a more accurate depiction of the subject. In writing this poem, Frost was inspired by his childhood experience with swinging on birches, which was a popular game for children in rural areas of New England during the time. Frost’s own children were avid “birch swingers,” as demonstrated by a selection from his daughter Lesley’s journal: “On the way home, i climbed up a hi birch and came down with it and i stopt in the air about three feet and pap cout me.”

In the poem, the act of swinging on birches is presented as a way to escape the hard rationality or “Truth” of the adult world, if only for a moment. As the boy climbs up the tree, he is climbing toward “heaven” and a place where his imagination can be free. The narrator explains that climbing a birch is an opportunity to “get away from earth awhile / And then come back to it and begin over.” A swinger is still grounded in the earth through the roots of the tree as he climbs, but he is able to reach beyond his normal life on the earth and reach for a higher plane of existence.

Frost highlights the narrator’s regret that he can ow longer find this peace of mind from swinging on birches. Because he is an adult, he is unable to leave his responsibilities behind and climb toward heaven until he can start fresh on the earth. In fact, the narrator is not even able to enjoy the imagined view of a boy swinging in the birches. In the fourth line of the poem, he is forced to acknowledge the “Truth” of the birches: the bends are caused by winter storms, not by a boy swinging on them.

Significantly, the narrator’s desire to escape from the rational world is inconclusive. He wants to escape as a boy climbing toward heaven, but he also wants to return to the earth: both “going and coming back.” The freedom of imagination is appealing and wondrous, but the narrator still cannot avoid returning to “Truth” and his responsibilities on the ground; the escape is only a temporary one.

Robert Frost: Poems Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Robert Frost: Poems is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Robert Frost as a poet Symbolisms

This is a really detailed question for this short answer space. Nature is Frost's main motif for symbolism. Frost is intetrested in the cycle of life and death shown through the seasons in a way that people can connect with. There is also the idea...

Relationship between man and woman?

In Frost's poems (particularly after 1914), he focuses on the trouble men and women have within their intimate relationships and examines the reason why many of these relationships have stagnated.

You might want to check out Gradesaver's theme...

Discuss the theme of the poem "The Road Not Taken" written by Robert Frost.

The central theme of "The Road Not Taken" revolves around the significance of human choice. Through its tone, language, and structure, the poem is able to offer multiple understandings of what it means to choose. The first interpretation of choice...

Study Guide for Robert Frost: Poems

Robert Frost: Poems study guide contains a biography of poet Robert Frost, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis of his major poems.

• About Robert Frost: Poems
• Robert Frost: Poems Summary
• "Mending Wall" Video
• Character List

Essays for Robert Frost: Poems

Robert Frost: Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Robert Frost's poems.

• Nature Imagery in the Works of Robert Frost
• Robert Frost in England - A Short Biography
• An Explication of Mending Wall By Robert Frost
• The Most of It
• "Eternal Freshness of the Flawless Poem:" Why Frost's Poetry Remains Vital

Lesson Plan for Robert Frost: Poems

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Robert Frost: Poems
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Robert Frost: Poems Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Robert Frost: Poems

• Introduction
• Awards and recognition
• Legacy and cultural influence

by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees , I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain . They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow -crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows— Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter , and could play alone . One by one he subdued his father’s trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It’s when I’m weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig’s having lashed across it open. I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Summary of Birches

• Popularity of “Birches”: Robert Frost, a great American poet wrote ‘Birches’. This poem is known as one of the best literary pieces, for its themes of natural beauty and memory. The poem revolves around the beautiful, birches trees that are bent toward the ground. It also tells about the speaker ’s past experiences associated with those trees. Its popularity, however, lies in that it deals with the subject of a carefree life.
• “Birches” As a Representative of Natural Beauty: The poet illustrates how the dark and bending trees catch his attention. When he glances those birches bending left to right in the forest, he thinks that the boys swinging caused bends in their branches. Later, he realizes that these bends might also be caused by ice-storm as the weight of ice forces them to bend toward the ground due to the pressure. Although he imagines both situations, he prefers the first one recalling his memory of how he used to swing on the trees from side to side and from the earth up to heaven. He uses his active imagination to make readers feel the joy of swinging on birches trees. Also, he compares his life with a pathless wood and desire to get an escape into those carefree days of childhood. Therefore, he dreams about swinging in the birches to get away from the pains of life.
• Major Themes in “Birches”: Nature, memory, and childhood are the major themes of this poem. The poem speaks about the poet’s encounter with those beautiful trees. It illustrates how he associates two different ideas while looking at the bent branches of those beautiful trees. The beautiful widespread bends in the branches remind him of his beautiful past days. Also, he imagines how natural calamities can transform the actual appearances of the objects . He desires to be the swingers of birches as he was in his childhood.

Analysis of Literary Devices Used in “Birches”

literary devices are tools used to convey emotions, ideas, and themes in a poem or a story . With the help of these devices, the writers make their texts more appealing to the reader. Robert Frost has also employed some literary devices in this poem to capture the beauty of birches trees. The analysis of some of the literary devices used in this poem has been stated below.

• Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line. For example, the sound of /a/ in “Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—”.
• Consonance : Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /l/ in “Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells”.
• Personification : Personification is to give human qualities to inanimate objects. For example, in line sixteen, “So low for long, they never right themselves”. As if the trees are human and can correct their postures but not they are not willing to do that.
• Anaphora : It refers to the repetition of a word or expression in the first part of some verses. For example, “As the” in the first stanza of the poem is repeated to emphasize the point.
• Alliteration : Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in quick succession. For example, the sound if /c/ in “As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel” and the sound of /b/ in “When I see birches bend to left and right”.
• Simile : Simile is used to compare something with something else to make the meanings clear to the readers. For example,

“Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair.”

• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “When I see birches bend to left and right”, “To the top branches, climbing carefully” and “And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk.”
• Enjambment : It is defined as a thought or clause that does not come to an end at a line break ; instead, it moves over to the next line. For example,

“And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig’s having lashed across it open.”

• Hyperbole : Hyperbole is a device used to exaggerate a statement for the sake of emphasis. For example,

“Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust.”

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in “Birches”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem

• Stanza : A stanza is a set of lines or verses in a poem. ‘Birches’ is a single stanza long free- verse poem with fifty lines without any stanza break.
• Free Verse : Free Verse is a type of poetry that does not contain patterns of rhyme or meter . This is a free-verse poem with no strict rhyme or meter

Quotes to be Used

The lines stated below can be used for children when discussing ‘life’ in rural areas. The description would help them understand the blissful life of those areas.

“I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward  heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again.”

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Birches by Robert Frost, Essay Example

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Relationship of Man and Nature in Birches by Robert Frost

‘ Birches’ is one of the poems written by Robert Frost in the early 20 th century. Referring to Frost’s early poems sometimes seems challenging due to their nature the thematic intentions by the poet when he wrote the poems. ‘Birches’ is a poem that Frost wrote mainly to bring to the readers the concept of science in the society. In order to do this well, Robert Frost used other themes such as nature in relation to human in the poem. In the early days of 19 th century, Robert Frost was mainly concerned with ensuring perfection of what he referred to as “the sound of sense” (Fagan 37). In the poem ‘Birches’, the relationship between man and nature has been well illustrated either directly or using certain literary devices such as symbolism and irony. This paper examines the aforementioned theme as depicted in the poem.

Nature is one of the elements predominantly featured in ‘Birches’ and the poem include certain moments of encounter or interaction between a natural object or human speaker. The first three stanzas of the poem depicts nature as related to people. The persona says, “I like to think that some boys have been swinging them. But…” (Frost; Line 3-4). In this excerpt, the persona refers to the birches that have been bent to the right and left.  Birches are nature in the making but the fact that they swung is an indication of some level of human influence in them. The persona tends to find out the existing connection or relationship between the birches and the boys. Birch is a broadleaved hard wood tree that is deciduous in nature. Their ending is not natural and is seen to be influenced by human. In this case, the poet has employed the use of birches as symbolism to elaborate on how nature and human relate.

Like many other poems by Robert Frost, ‘Birches’ focuses on the act of discovery and Frost ensures demonstration of how human-nature engagement leads to self-discovery, knowledge and growth among people (Fagan 69). For example, the persona talks of climbing the birch tree towards the end of the poem to remove stiffness of the tree branches for other uses. “Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground ” (Frost; Line 28-29). Here it is evidenced that Frost engages the readers of his poem to understand how human gained nature helped people gain knowledge during his time. In particular, he depicts the existence of an important relationship between nature and man.

Despite the fact that human depended on nature to make some beneficial discoveries, Frost makes it clear to the readers that nature is not concerned with human’s achievement, discoveries or miseries. In short, between nature and man, only man is aware that nature benefits him and not vice versa. He uses personification to show how ice affects trees. “ Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning. After a rain, they click upon themselves ” (Frost; Line6-7). In essence, he tries to show the readers that ice affects the comfort of birches, and the birches are not concerned with the human interests but their own.

As stated before, nature is a crucial theme in most of Frost’s poems. He describes the origin of human knowledge using nature. His poems reveal that science originated from the interaction between nature and man. The poem, ‘Birches’ is one of the poems showing the relationship between human and nature as described above.

Works Cited

Fagan, Deirdre J. Critical Companion to Robert Frost: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work . New York: Facts on File, 2007. Internet resource.

Frost, Robert. Birches . New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2002. Print.

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Critical analysis of Frost’s “Birches”

In the poem “Birches” we come across Frost’s desire to withdraw from the world as also his love of the earth as symbolized by the boy’s game of swinging birches. The central thought of this poem is that the poet dreams of becoming a swinger o birches once again in his life as he was during his boyhood.

Frost’s central subject is humanity, and aliveness because it expresses living people. Other poets have written about people. But Robert frost’s poems are of the people and somewhat different. People in Frost’s poem work, walk about, and converse, and tell their tales with the freedom of common speech. “Birches” is among Frost best-known piece and has acquired wide popularity. What places the poem on a distinctly high level of appeal is the true and broad humanity running throughout the poem . In the background of the swinging birches, the imaginary boy’s behaviour and utterances acquire a philosophical depth and wisdom.

In “Birches”, the poet is weary of considerations that his life involves but he does not want to escape from his life on earth. He wants to become a swinger of birches at least for the time being. It is not the feeling of escapism that forms the central thought of “Birches” but love for the earth. Although the poet may like to withdraw from the cares and anxieties of the life on the earth, he cannot entertain the idea of relinquishing the earth forever. Frost was no mystic and perhaps no poem is more expressive of his thought than Birches. Elizabeth Jennings has pointed out, ‘in Birches he declares “Earth the right place for love,” and goes on to describe his own preponderance for the immediate tangible world, and his ability to manage without too much consideration of transcendental things.

Climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more. But dipped its top and set me down again.

The way in which the theme is rendered is dramatic. The sudden shifts in the imagery and the warmth of the humanly element in it give the poem a dramatic force and intensity. However the poem cannot be describe as a dramatic monologue , despite the dramatic the theme is treated here in elaborate canvas. “Birches” is one of those poems in which we find a sustained movement of sense, feeling and rhythm from beginning to end. Brower has rightly remarked about “Birches” and “The Census-Taker” ‘Frost offers a sure standard of achieved form in poetry of talk in an extended nature lyric Birch or in a country walker’s narrative like “The Census-Taker”.’ The evolution of feeling and reflection in these poems is carried forward unerringly through masterly variation of blank verse rhythm . Both poems start from vivid perceptions of natural or at least country things and both dramatize a person discovering new meanings or new puzzles in that situation.” The poem “Birches” begins in the tune of easy conversation.

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

Some critics like Alvarez deny Frost the title of “nature poet” and would regard him as rural or country poet. Undoubtedly Robert Frost’s poetry has an agrarian bias to is the poetry of a countryman for the countryman. “He is a country poet, whose business is to live with nature rather than through it.” He wishes to carry us off to agrarian world from the choking modern city. He is essentially a poet of pastures and plains, mountains and rivers, woods and gardens, groves and bowers, fruits and flowers, seeds and birds. To him “Wood are lovely, dark and deep and Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. l’dlike to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more But dipped its top and set me down again.

Frost has a tendency to philosophize but is free from didacticism . It has been explained by Lewis in these words, “He is a serious moralist as well as a serious artist But his peculiar intimacy with nature prevents him from being openly didactic: He teaches, like nature, in parables: sometimes merely presenting a picture, a mood , a narrative , and leaving you to draw your own conclusions, never permitting himself more than the tender, humorous sort of comment we find at the end of ‘Birches’:

I’d like to get away from earth a while And then come back to it and begin over. may no fate wilfully misunderstand me And half grand what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

The language used is usually simple and clear. Some of its lines have epigrammatic force and terseness. The poem is remarkable for the poet’s mastery over blank verse too. The poem is written in a very simple and clear language and conversational style . Some of its line shaves epigrammatic force and terseness.

The poem consists of a series of beautiful pictures of nature and of man, and each sketch is hit off in a few happy touches, and is complete in itself. The swinging of the birches tossed by the ice-storms, and looked on at by a boy, in the early hours of the day, till

the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells. Shattering and avalanching ont he snow-crust- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

makes a genuine appeal. It is a striking picture of nature and of man rendered in terms of prominent imagery , an imagery that combines both fact and fancy. The second picture in the poem is that of the trees with “their trunks arching in the woods”. The ruffled atmosphere of the swinging birches is compared here to-

girls on hands and knees that throw their hair. Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

There is a striking between the images, arching trees and the girls in disheveled hair, and each image renders the other more prominent. In the main the poem seems to be narrative or descriptive in intent. The philosophical statement at the end of the poem serves as finale to a series of picture which are significant for their shrewd turns.”

C.D. Lewis makes the following comment on its rhythm – the upward and downward movement of the rhythm fully reflects the going upto and coming down of the swinger of birches. But when the poet moralizes the rhythm becomes slow.”

About the imagery of the poem Prof. Saxena writes “The crystal ice becomes heaps of broken glass which is compared to the inner dome of heaven. The arched trees are transformed into girls on hands and knees – the girls who throw their hair before them over their heads to dry in the sun. The country boy ‘whose only play was what he found himself’, riding and subduing his father’s birches becomes the mature poet. One has just to quote a few lines to show the vividness and power of Frost’s imagery :

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust Such heaps of broken glass away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen

Frost does not see the country with the eyes of the carefree vagabond or the city stick romantic who finds it as charming and refreshing as a new mistress. He has for it rather the understanding, slightly quizzical look a man given the wife of him bosom.

It is no spirit of nature which sends Frost’s rain or wind; he neither sees in the natural world the pervading spirit Wordsworth saw…. the mountain is not a personality as it is for Wordsworth in the “Prelude” and in other poems” Frost did not idealize or glorify the objects of nature. He saw them as things with which and on which man acts in course of the daily work of gaining a livelihood. He rarely makes his lessen or his philosophy of nature as overt and obvious as Wordsworthian simplicity of style in his descriptions of Nature. In his poem Birches, we find Frost’s capacity for minute description and accurate description at their best and the opening lines of the poem are a characteristic example of the same. He gives here a smile, concrete description of the “habits” of birches and the changes wrought upon them by wind and ice storms. Young boys who swing on them.

When I see briches bend to heft and right Across the linesof straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging does’t bend them down to stay. Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain They click upon themselves As the breezae rises, and turned many-coloured As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Frost’s accuracy of description is, accompanied by delicacy of feeling aid imagination.. In the words of Untermever, “Birches”, one of Robert Frost’s most widely quoted poems, beautifully illustrates the poet’s power, the power to blend observation and imagination. He begins in tone of easy conversation:

When I see briches bend to left and right Across the lines of starighter darker trees…

and them, without warning or change of tone , the reader is arrested by a whimsical image, and the fact turns into a fancy. “I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. Fact and fancy play together throughout the poem . The crystal ice becomes heaps of broken glass. “You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.” The arched trees are transformed into girls on hands and knees “That how their hair before them over their heads to dry in the sun.” The country boy, whose only play was what he found himself, “riding and subduing his father’s birches, becomes the mature poet who announces:

Earth’s the right place for love; I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

Though Frost is regarded preeminently as a poet of nature, man holds a more important place in his poetry than nature. He himself was conscious of the fact when he said, ‘I guess I’m not a nature poet have written two poems without a human being in them.” Contrasting Frost’s attitude towards nature with that of Wordsworth’s Murion Montgomery has rightly pointed out, From the publication of “A Boy’s Will down” to the present time Frost has indicated a realization that man can serve important part of this Universe.

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When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.

More by this poet

A line-storm song.

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,    The road is forlorn all day,  Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,    And the hoof-prints vanish away.  The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,   Expend their bloom in vain.  Come over the hills and far with me,    And be my love in the rain. 

Not to Keep

They sent him back to her. The letter came Saying... and she could have him. And before She could be sure there was no hidden ill Under the formal writing, he was in her sight— Living.— They gave him back to her alive— How else? They are not known to send the dead— And not disfigured visibly. His face?—

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk, I don’t stand still and look around On all the hills I haven’t hoed, And shout from where I am, What is it? No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, Blade-end up and five feet tall,

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“Birches” by Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s “Birches” is one of the most widely appreciated poems. It is a fine example of the poet’s power to fuse observation and imagination. Frost belongs to the pastoral tradition. Most of his poems reveal the beautiful countryside of New England. They also express the national spirit of America. If his poems are closely read, they can be seen as philosophical, as they touch upon the complexities of life. This paper is an analysis of the poem, “Birches”, to highlight the delight and wisdom it radiates.

The poet one day sees some birches bend to left and right and they evoke in him nostalgic memories of his childhood. He thinks that some boys must have done it. However, immediately he realizes that the boys cannot bend them the way they are: “swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay/ Ice storms do that” (Frost). Therefore, the only possibility is a heavy ice storm. Frost then observes the ice blocks lying trapped on the trees. Such blocks get melted away as the sun warms up and they fall down cracking into pieces: “Such heaps of broken glass sweep away” (Frost). The broken pieces are then swept away by the wind. The trees cannot straighten themselves easily after such an event. They remain in that arched position for years.

The most beautiful description in the poem is the comparison made by the poet between the sight of the arched trees and that of some beautiful girls drying their hair in the sun. The trees “trailing their leaves on the ground” are compared to the “girls on their hands and knees that throw their hair” (Frost). The sunlight after a rain, the broken ice pieces, the birches lying bent and the soft breeze blowing bring memories of his early days. The poet wants to link this enchanting sight with his favorite leisure time activities in his childhood, but the “Truth broke in”, the truth of the ice storms bending the trees.

The poet, therefore, returns to his earlier statement: “I should prefer to have some boy bend them”. He recollects the sight of the boys in New England going out to fetch the cows, and as they find the birch trees, they swing and bend them down. “By riding them over and over again”, they take away the stiffness of the trees. The boys ensure that not even one tree is left unconquered. What is great about this game is that the poet is able to learn a great deal from it about life. He learns the art of going up and coming down, and not simply going up alone. The boys, like the poet, also learn how to balance themselves after reaching the top of the birches. The game has so delighted the poet that he compares the climbing to the care one gives in filling up a cup. It is like “filling above the brim” (Frost). After reaching the top of the trees the boys fling outward, “kicking his way down through the air to the ground” (Frost). As the poet was once himself a swinger of birches, he knows the pleasure of swinging. One reason why he wants to go back to those good old days is that the present life is full of problems.

Suddenly the poet becomes conscious of the hard reality of life. In this “pathless wood”, he says, “your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs/ Broken across it” (Frost). Therefore, the trees give him an escape route, to go away from the hard reality. However, he does not want to be mistaken. The most important part of the poem is when the poet says that he wants to go up “And then come back to it and begin again” (Frost). He realizes that God may hear only half of his prayer and he may be denied of his desire to come down, he may be “snatched away/ Not to return” (Frost). Therefore, he not only makes corrections but also asserts that “Earth’s is the right place for love: / I don’t know where it is likely to go better” (Frost). This is taken as an example to show how robust an optimist Frost is.

Once again the poet makes his position clear. He says he would like to climb the birch trees. He likes climbing up and up the trees that point toward heaven. When the trees cannot bear him anymore, he will dip down to reach back to the ground. This will enable him both, the pleasure of going up and coming down. This is the greatness of swinging birch trees. One can experience the pleasure of both heaven and earth.

A Frostian poem begins with a clear and concrete situation which is taken from the life of an ordinary man. It gives great delight to the reader, but gradually he is forced to a philosophic speculation. The poem also brings out man’s relationship with nature. Frost does not exaggerate the situation, but he is fond of understatements. Beneath the simplicity of his poems, like “Birches”, lies the complexity of life. This is very much evident in this poem. Initially he invites the readers to see the beauty of nature, the bent birch trees after a storm. Then he moves on to his main task of inducing insight by asserting that earth is the right place to love.

The poem, thus, is a reminder to those who feel that happiness can be found only after this life, in heaven. Even if one tries to soar in his imagination towards some fantastic world, he must come back, like the birch swingers, to this earth. “Birches”, therefore, is a very optimistic poem. Without making it a prosaic verse, Frost has managed the blank verse in the poem beautifully. He has beautifully mingled wisdom and fancy in this poem. It is light, serious, reminiscent, realistic, and he has beautifully blended in it fun and thought. It has been well accepted not only by the readers but also by the scholars and the academicians. It is taught in classrooms all over the world.

Frost, Robert. “Birches”. Web.

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“Birches” by Robert Frost

“Birches” by Robert Frost is a nostalgic poem filled with fond memories and fantasies, yet at the same time the speaker reveals his longing to escape. Frost sets up a conversation with himself using dialogue between his sensible, knowing self and his fantasizing, nostalgic self. At first the poem seems to be just an account for all of the birches leaning with none standing straight. Frost would like to think that a child at play bent the trees, probably to escape the truth that nature destroys itself.

The idea of trees being bent by ice and snow is much less romantic than the idea of a young boy enjoying himself, teaching himself some lessons about Physics and life . This idea of nature’s self-destruction is one that isn’t often addressed in our time, since most destruction to nature is blamed on humans and pollution. Frost, being a man of the country, realizes that nature often destroys itself, but he wants to imagine a different cause for the leaning branches.

The speaker’s fantasy offers him a way to make some good come out of the injury to the branches, thereby allowing himself to recollect his past as a boy swinging from branch to branch. This fantasy also allows the speaker, not Frost, to escape from the reality of the destruction of the earth. For these reasons, this poem illustrates the battle of the speaker between the youthful thoughts of fantasy and the older, more plausible, facts of reality.

The description of the boy swing from branch to branch could also be construed as a metaphor: a boy’s actions swinging from birches represents his learning through feeling out situations and making mistakes while growing. Of course, a boy will learn of balance and heights while climbing trees, but there is an underlying admission that he is growing up. Frost uses the natural side of things in climbing trees to parallel growing up and becoming a man.

The description of the boy at play, “He learned all there was/To learn about not launching out too soon”, “climbing carefully”; “Kicking his way down through the air to the ground” shows many traits of learning through experience . The clever choice of words in “with the same pains you use to fill a cup” he prompts the reader to remember the pain of growing up with all of the new challenges and tasks associated with growing up.

Because of Frost’s commitment to using nature to help people explore them, it is not surprising that the most frequent methods in his attempt to deal with this nature-spirit dualism is the juxtaposition of reality and fantasy. The speaker also relates the stages of life and tot he season of nature. He/she makes several references to what happens during the ongoing course of the seasons within the first twenty-two lines. The speaker draws us into his observation the trees “you must have see them / Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning / After a rain” and adds that “once they are bowed / So low so long, they never right themselves.

The speaker is revealing only the scientific aspect of this phenomenon. After he points out that the trees will be bent over the years, there is a major transition in the speaker’s way of thinking. he turned to his imagination again to provide the explanation he prefers. The idea of fantasy is introduced, and it is revealed that this aspect is much more favorable for the speaker when he/she says “I should prefer. ” The second part of “Birches” deals with a fantasy that is common to most of mankind; a longing to start over again.

It is common to hear someone wish to start over again for countless reasons. Here Frost uses the simile “And life is too much like a pathless wood” to acknowledge that life can lead a person to feel lost. “Pathless wood” illustrates confusion, whereas “one eye weeping from a twig” illustrates the sadness that comes from life’s adversity. In saying, “I’d like to get away from earth for a while” Frost expresses a desire for an escape not necessarily via death, but perhaps through fantasy where he may start over again.

He quickly addresses the idea of fate and explains that he doesn’t want his wish “half ” granted; he does not want to die; he only wants to go back to a time when life was care free and easy. His wish “to get away from earth awhile” is not a death wish. Frost’s love of life and the absence of gloom in this particular work illustrate that he simply wants a better place to be, a place where reality and stress can disappear for awhile. The conclusion of the poem is confusing because it is difficult for the reader to understand why the speaker claims, “That would be good both going and coming back.

He could mean the feeling of free falling with the climax of springing upward, or he could refer to belief that one-day he will be reincarnated. In any case, he wished he could escape the pressures of everyday life by living or at least visiting the fantasy world he/she has created. This fantasy world is one which children in every day life create, and in which the speaker cane remember creating several years ago. The personal aspect of the poem starts in line forty-one. The speaker takes the reader back with him in his/her flashback to childhood and the years of being “a swinger of birches.

The speaker lets the reader know the fantasy world he pictured and revealed was one that he had experiences as a child; one which he can remember the carefree feeling of being a child. “Too far from town to learn baseball” he used to “subdue his father’s trees / By riding them down over and over again / Until he took the stiffness out of them. ” His imagination has survived the stressful adulthood that fact points to the antecedent scenario: a vision of birches reaches out to relieve his stress and reawakens his store of memories mixed with his fantasies of life.

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ROBERT FROST'S BIRCHES: A CRITICAL APPRECIATION

Robert Frost is often considered as the unofficial poet laureate of America. If his poetry showed a distinct love for the rural New England, it was no accident.He started his living as a farmer and craftsman before turning to poetry.So he had the first hand knowledge of farms, fields and the men who toiled in them.He observed them like no one else, presenting their unsung lives with fresh images sprinkled with delightful wisdom. It is often told that a typical Frost poem begins in delight, and ends in wisdom. They start by describing a particular sight or imagery that has caught the poet's attention. Frost goes on to explore the various aspects of it in a light hearted manner and adds his wisdom that makes us view that experience in a different light altogether.This article traces the major hallmarks of Frost's Poetry in one of the more loved poem of his-The Birches.Technical innovations and imagery of the poem is analysed keeping focus on the delightful wisdom that the poem offers.

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The poet/critic Randall Jarrell often praised Frost's poetry and wrote, "Robert Frost, along with Stevens and Eliot, seems to me the greatest of the American poets of this century. Frost's virtues as a poet and artist are extraordinary. No other living poet has written so well about the actions of ordinary men; his wonderful dramatic monologues or dramatic scenes come out of a knowledge of people that few poets have had, and they are written in a verse that uses, sometimes with absolute mastery, the rhythms of actual speech‖. Robert Frost loved nature. His poetry was full of emotional appearances about his personal life and behavior. In addition, his literary verses are uncomplicated and profound. He also wrote plain fictions about common people, usually inhabitants of rustic New England. Robert Frost wrote exceptional prose, applying ordinary and sincere language; his poems enclose concept of symbolism, obscure significances, sounds, rhyme, meter, metaphors and more. Robert Frost was, quite simply, one of America's leading 20 th century poets. It could be because he wrote poems about rural life drawing a distinct contrast between its innocence and peacefulness and the depression and corruption of city life. It could also be because he used traditional verse forms that were understood by one and all. It might even be that people sensed his step forward in the direction of modernizing the interplay of rhythm and meter while writing exactly how people spoke. His poetry has been called traditional, experimental, regional, universal, and even pastoral. The world of Frost's poetry is beautiful but it is also harsh and uncaring. Frost wrote that, ―Man has need of nature, but nature has no need of man‖. The poem Birches contains the image of slender trees bent to the ground temporally by a boy's swinging on them or permanently by an ice storm. But as the poem unfolds, it becomes clear that the speaker is concerned not only with child's play and natural phenomena, but also with the point at which physical and spiritual reality merge: ― I like to think some boy's been swinging them But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice – storms do‖

Jendral Besar

International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies

International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a famous American Poet. As most of his poems are autobiographical in subject, it is evident that he has been mostly influenced by the environment around him in composing his masterpieces. Frost’s themes are very simple in the surface meaning endowed with an easily understandable diction and a liberal style of writing. Yet, a careful study of his works vividly reveals his greatness as a ‘true’ judge of various critical aspects associated with the everyday experiences of the humans. His major characters- the narrators in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “Mending wall” and “The Road not Taken” are viewed as the real people with real struggles in real life. It is seen that Frost’s poetry is highly connotative and the same reader can interpret the poetry of Robert Frost in multiple ways in multiple settings. The present article aims at critically examining Frost’s ‘realistic’ and ‘rationalistic’ approaches in the elevation of human nature under the broad spectrum of human life. This article also aims at proving that no poem of Frost ends in an absolute imagination because Frost himself seems to believe in realism as the ultimate fate of the individuals though fancy and imagination provides a temporary relief to the disturbed soul.

SMART M O V E S J O U R N A L IJELLH

Robert Lee Frost is one of the major American poets, born on 26thof March in 1874 in San Francisco. He is also known as the New England poet. He is rewarded four times Pulitzer Prize. Through the medium of his poetry Frost tried to spread awareness among human beings towards our environment and this message he conveyed beautifully through the medium of poetry. He dictates that nature is harsh and indifferent towards man and man should accept the troubles thrown by nature. Whatever we do, it directly affects our environment. He suggests that we must not afraid of failure and defeats. We take from nature in abundance and return to it very little. So, he makes us aware that we must be Eco-friendly and must be aware of what is hidden in the lap of nature which oureyes are unable to perceive but which we can comprehend through our common sense. Key Words: Environment, Nature, Materialism, Technology, Exploitation, Science

Journal of English Linguistics 30.1: 73-90

Margaret Freeman

Journal of English Linguistics

TJPRC Publication

The world of nature is very important to study of Frost's poetry. By using nature as a background of his poems, Frost clearly demonstrates meaning and values of life and often depicts some treatment of nature and the social situation that have included a characteristic portrayal of humanity. This study enables us to understand Frost's poetical theme and values that would explain his hidden voice of nature and examines human inner mind, exposing its conflicts and harmony through it. Some critics have identified him as a terrifying poet and others labeled him a pessimistic poet or, a dark naturalist. However, he has a constant vision of nature throughout the poems. More than anything else, the speaker of his poems uses sign and symbol of nature that take an identity of others. Furthermore, this study discusses his series of concrete images which echo his poetry and intensify clarification of human life on the conceptions of the world of nature.

Ahmad Mahbub-ul-Alam , Tasmia Moslehuddin

Nature has often been one of the prominent themes in literature. It has been the topic of celebration by the Romantics to have a way out from the hectic business of city life. On the other hand, the adaptation of the same subject has also been observed by the Modern poets to put emphasis on the realities and responsibilities of human existence. This paper aims at making a comparative study in the presentation of “Nature” by William Wordsworth, an English Romantic and Robert Frost, a Modern American.

Abhishek Solomon

WILLIAM AND ROBERT

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Birches — Main Idea Of Birches by Robert Frost

Main Idea of Birches by Robert Frost

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Published: Nov 8, 2019

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Robert Frost Poetry Discussion Forum

How to read a poem

-Discuss the author and how he or she relates to the poem

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-Describe how the Poem looks on the page

-Regularize (analyze it) the poem. What is not being said?

-Discuss the poem’s anomalies

Provide a Works Cited Slide

Now, you are to present one of the poems you selected in PowerPoint form. You can be creative, and I want you to keep your text concise and to your point (no less than 7 slides/no more than 10 slides). Address the five elements of how to read a poem in your presentation. To earn full points, you have to address the elements of how to read a poem, you have to keep your presentation to 10 slides, and your presentation needs to be submitted as an attachment.

If you do not know how to create a PowerPoint, you can use the blank template below.

To earn 100%, you are to use imagery with short keywords per slide. Do not type paragraphs per slide. If you submit paragraphs, you will lose points.

Blank Powerpoint

If you do not have the book, you can google the poems. You will use one of the poems to complete the assignment.

At this point, you should know my expectations for this assignment. Be creative and keep it short and interesting.

Do not upload your assignment from your onedrive or google drive. I cannot open it. You will have to save it to your desktop and then upload it.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost Assignments:

Read the following poems in your Norton Anthology: “The Road Not Taken”, p. 892. Learn about Robert Frost on this Biography.com website. Read and listen to this NPR Tribute to Frost on the date which marks 50 years after his death – January 29, 2013. Listen to Frost read another of his famous poems, “Birches”. Review this unique Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”. Then, review this Analysis and Summary of “Home Burial”.

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The Poem by Robert Frost - "Birches"

Updated 16 September 2022

Subject Books

Downloads 59

Category Literature

Topic Birches

Robert Frost wrote a poem titled "Birches" which first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in August 1915. Along with "The Sound of Trees" and "The Road Not Taken", the poem was included in Frost's third collection of poetry, Mountain Interval, published in 1916. The poem is a lyrical description of the changing seasons.The poem begins by describing the way birches appear in the landscape. In contrast to the straight, linear lines of other trees, birches are scattered to the right and left. The poet imagines a boy swinging between two birches. However, the rational side of the poet knows that the birches' bent form is the work of an ice storm, which cracked their enamel."Birches" is a poem by Robert Frost that describes the natural beauty of the trees. The poet, in a forest, notices a pair of birches bending in the wind. He first thinks that the birches bend because of a boy swinging on them, but then he realizes that the bends are caused by an ice storm. The ice storm bends the branches because of the pressure. The poet then remembers swinging on birches as a child. The poem is a great example of how the author uses an active imagination to create a poem that will have its readers feeling the joy of the birches as they read.The metaphors used in "Birches" are effective and help the reader understand the message. However, it is also possible to read the poem in its literal sense. The language is simple and effective in displaying the message. In addition to this, the poem also uses multiple meanings that help the reader.Birches are an important tree in the Northern Hemisphere. They have a wide distribution in temperate regions, with 40 species. They are often found in lowland habitats and are cultivated for their edible and cabinet-making properties. They are also used in landscaping in some parts of the world.As a child, the act of swinging on birches is a way to escape the adult world. It is a symbolic representation of heaven, the place of free imagination. As a young boy, the act of climbing birches allows a boy to escape the earth for a few moments, yet still remain rooted in the earth.One of Frost's most famous poems, "Birches" has more than meets the eye. The poem was first published in August 1915 in the Atlantic Monthly and later collected in his third book, Mountain Interval, in 1916. Frost's poem is widely regarded for its formal perfection, opposition of the internal and the external world, and dry wit.This poem is a short one, with just fifty-nine lines. It does not use stanza breaks, but is written in iambic pentameter, a form that reflects the author's poetic style. Frost's style is meditative, and this style works well for this kind of poem. Personification The Personification of Birches is an evocative poem with themes of childhood, nature, and memory. It tells the story of a boy who wants to swing on the birches. The speaker uses a variety of imagery to depict his musings on these themes, including a boy's ice-storm and a wishful thought. Throughout the poem, he uses brilliant descriptive passages to show how the elements of nature can transform objects and people.The persona in "Birches" refers to the childlike wonder and joy that children have. The speaker imagines a young boy climbing the birches in the woods and jumping off, drifting back to earth while holding the uppermost branches. This poem celebrates the carefree spirit of childhood, suggesting that the speaker is a child without responsibilities.Alliteration Alliteration of birches is a form of poetic composition that emphasizes the beauty of nature. The birch tree has a beautiful slender trunk that bends in the wind and snow. The poet uses this metaphor to capture the reader's attention. This poem evokes a sense of wonder as the poet describes how the bends of birches resemble the movement of a boy swinging from birch branches.William Carlos Williams uses alliteration to create a memorable image. He uses the birches as a symbolic representation of the poet's childhood memories. The poet then uses nature as a symbol for his life's journey, introducing themes such as imagination and darker realities.Image of conquest Frost's poem "Birches" is set in an idyllic New England landscape, and yet it is a work published during World War I. While the poem shows little sign of war, there are many images of violence and conquest that are present. Frost makes these images visible, and uses the language of conquest to make them more powerful.The poem begins with an image of a boy swinging on a birch. The boy acknowledges that only an ice storm could bend the tree, but contrasts the warmth of the sun and the shattered ice. This imagery helps the reader imagine a child's naive innocence and longs to return to that time.Relationship to girls on all fours "On All Fours" is a follow-up to the critically acclaimed second season of the Netflix comedy Girls. The series has been criticized for making a number of events seem too unrealistic. For example, Marnie wouldn't date a psychotic artist, and Ray wouldn't date a manic young girl. Furthermore, Hannah wouldn't get a book deal if she didn't write a blog. In response to these criticisms, the show has released a sequel, "On All Fours."Themes of the poem The poem about birches opens with the image of a boy swinging among the birches. In fact, the poet argues that it was a boy who bent these trees. However, the real truth is that birches are twisted permanently because of ice storms.The poem reflects the poet's philosophical views on life and the nature of the world. He compares reality and imagination. He also compares the earth and heaven. In order to achieve this, the poet makes use of figurative language. Ultimately, the poem is about the beauty and the pain of life. It shows how the writer relates childhood memories to adulthood. Moreover, the poem deals with the themes of freedom and rebirth.Another main theme in the poem is the tension between the real world and the poet's imagination. Frost tries to transcend the limitations of the real world through his poetic imagination. In this way, he enables the reader to swing back and forth between the two. For instance, in the poem "Birches", the speaker rejects the real cause of bent birches, and instead describes the act of swinging high to heaven and landing back on earth.

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• Robert Frost,

Robert Frost Poetry

• Words: 1451

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Analysis of `Birches` by Robert Frost

Robert Frost is a prominent American poet whose poetry is marked by deep personal feelings and experience, clear imagery and symbolism. The poem “Birches” symbolically represents the desire of a speaker to return to the past and escape from the troubles by swinging on Birches. Thesis The symbol and theme of “birches swinging” reflects inner psychological state of Robert Frost, his grievances and desperation, as a result of several deaths in his family, which he tries to escape.

Robert Frost was born in 1874 in San Francisco. The first death he was faced with was his father’s death in 1885 forced the family to return to their native New England, where they settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frost went to Dartmouth College but withdrew in his first term to return to Lawrence and support his family by teaching.

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             The poem “Birches” reflects his life struggle and grievances, sorrow and depression followed Frost all his life. Frost married in 1895 and applied to Harvard as a special student; he was accepted into a three-year program but with­drew after two years. Following the deaths of his son Elliott, his mother and his daughter Elinor, he fell into a deep depression and seriously contemplated suicide. In 1912 he and his family moved to England, where he found a publisher for his first book of verse, A Boy’s Will (1913). The collection was well received and was soon followed by a second, North of Boston (1914). These publications, along with his friendship with poets such as Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas, increased his exposure in liter­ary magazines. In 1915 he returned to the USA and settled on a farm in New Hampshire. There Frost the poet was nurtured. Like that of many great national poets, his verse relies heavily on the language of the people. Many of his poems take the form of dramatic mono­logues or dialogues, using and transforming the New Englander’s patterns of speech which he heard each day on his farm.

“Birches swinging” in the poem “Birches” means an escape from life troubles caused by the deaths of family members. Frost writes: “to get away from the earth awhile” (Frost line 49). “Birches swinging” means regret as a symbol which helps to unveil the realities of life representing a path to the outside world. This escape is symbolic of hopes and dreams.

Frost describes emotional sufferings of the speaker. The tree means life experience of a particular person (probably his own life), and it brings message to everyone to think over next step in his life. Climbing a birch implies not only security, but also the whole life of a person, who has a right to choose which path to go, the speaker is afraid that he will never come back on the earth being lost in his fantasies (Frost line, 59).

The theme of desperation is crossed, suitably given the briefest and simplest at­tention; and the swift efficiency of the lines leading to the culmination is sufficiently in evidence — the vitality coming from the sharp concreteness of the words and the alert, quick movement – not to need detailed comment here. The last two lines are expressed with such decisive clarity, and by virtue of their position they derive added emotional force from the preceding anticipations. They are a true emotional climax; the exclamation mark is not of that kind that tries to inject into words an emotional significance that they don’t really hold. So Frost conveys his feelings, not by telling readers how strong and deep they are, but by the vivid and vigorous presentation of a situation through which the grievance and desperation emerge. Taking into account his facts from his biography it is possible to say that the state of desperation was also caused by “tuberculosis that ran in the Frost family. No wonder Frost had frequent spells of melancholy. But his “will” prevailed” (Hart, 1999).

“Birches” reflects inner state of Frost: depression and losing hopes. Life struggle and life experience are the main themes of this poem. “Frost lost two children to death in early childhood, another to insanity, another to death after childbirth, and still another (after the death of Frost’s wife, Elinor) to suicide. Like any sensitive man who suffers, Frost sometimes blamed himself for his misfortune” (Davison, 2000). The narrator of “Birches” feels like a madman suffering from melancholy brought upon by the death of the beloved person. His depression is caused of no self-confidence because he is afraid to go out in the real world alone.

In spite of the theme of desperation, Frost uses fresh and vivid images. Symbolic “Birches swinging” is a successful image which helps to make readers feel the writer’s grasp of the object and situation he is dealing with, gives his grasp of it with precision, vividness, force, economy; and to make such an impact on us, its content, the stuff of which it is made., can’t be unduly fantastic and remote from his experience.

Climbing a birch is a symbol of future, and a person has a choice to choose his road, although it is a non-trodden path, it means that a person has to pave the way in his life in accordance with life expectations and aims. The speaker finds self-realization and self-expression in freedom or “birches swinging”. Both woks show that we live in darkness limited by our understanding of self and others while something forces us to see the truth of life.

Robert Frost himself appeared embarrassed at his own imaginative freedom, prefacing his works with statements which sought to legitimize the seductive appeal of fiction by appealing to some external authority. Due to renewal, the age of Frost was a time of chaos and great change which left people with a sense of disillusionment expressed in his works. That created a demand for a substitute reality, which could only be found in the fictitious world of Frost’s poem. Passion, tragedy, desperation and sorrow are the markers of this the poem.

It means that some despairs and troubles are greater than the others, but all of them caused a person to suffer like a birch. “Birches swinging” symbolizes losing hopes, as the speaker is not happy about the way his life turned out to be. He says boys should bend these branches using the chance to escape from cruelty of the world by swinging on a birch tree. This metaphor helps us to understand that much depends upon our perception of the world and our inner strength even if you “weary of considerations, / And life is too much like a pathless wood” (Frost lines 43-44).

In their very different ways they shared a faith in the worth of an individual person’s emotions, the value of his or her reac­tions to experience and the right to express or communicate these feel­ings. Taken literally and acted upon, such advice would have appalling consequences in terms of violence and suffering; it is not to be wondered at that more conservat­ive sectors of society feared the anarchic consequences of unrestrained expressions of feeling. Following critics it is possible to say that “below the bluff, rural sage and nature poet… he was a ‘people poet’ – Frost’s passion was cold-edged” (Whittington-Egan, 1999).

The fate of the narrator is tragic. He speaks of his original benevolence and of the miserable loneliness of his condition. Frost devoted himself to tell readers about loneliness, isolation, and frustration. Frost depicts pessimism which characterizes so much of the important writing of the mid-twentieth century was to probe the inner recesses of human behavior to see by what instincts we are governed. The symbolic meaning is part of the whole work of art, and the inter-connection are realized and brought out.

In sum, “Birches” vividly portrays that suffering of Frost is undergone in order to expand the human spirit, to delve into matters previously kept hidden, to grow through pain. Frost’s concern is for degrees of personal freedom, and sympathy results when a man, struggling against emotional pressures, is pushed further back, achieving little in his struggle for freedom, and having degrees of free­dom removed from him. The narrator cannot fit into the definition of ‘successful’ that society has imposed, so in those terms he is a failure. He does not have an ability to battle against these pressures, and is finally destroyed by his commitment to them.

Works Cited Page

1.      Davison, P. (2000), Farness and Depth: A Rumination on Robert Frost. The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 283, December, p. 113 2.      Frost, R. (N.d.) Birches. Available at: http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Frost/Birches.htm

3.      Hart, J. (1999) Frost in a Clear Lens. National Review, Vol. 51, May 3, p. 52. 4.      Whittington-Egan, R. (1999). Robert Frost: A Life. Contemporary Review, Vol. 274, February, p. 105.

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Dartmouth honors Robert Frost’s 150th birthday

The college held dramatic readings of the poet’s work, while local middle schoolers recited his poetry..

Dartmouth hosted a series of events to honor famed poet Robert Frost’s 150th birthday, according to English and comparative literature professor Donald Pease. The poet matriculated with the Class of 1896 but left Dartmouth during his first term, according to the Dartmouth Libraries website.

The two-day event series included a Frost poetry reading by actor Gordon Clapp in Baker-Berry Library, recitals by local middle school students in Sanborn Library and a lecture by Rutgers University English department chair Tyler Hoffman ’88 on the politics of Frost’s work. The series took place on March 25 and 26, the latter being Frost’s birthday.

“He won over his lifetime over 40 honorary degrees,” Pease said. “Dartmouth gave him two of those … He’s a Dartmouth fixture.”

More than 120 people attended Clapp’s dramatic reading of “Birches,” “Two Roads,” “Free Verse About Silas” and “Mending Wall” on March 25, according to Pease. Pease said Clapp performed because he is working on a project to “construct a dramatic version of the last years of Robert Frost’s life.” 

English department administrative assistant Carlene Kucharczyk, who watched Clapp’s performance, said it was “wonderful.”

“[Clapp] was just like I imagined Robert Frost,” Kucharczyk said. “You really felt like it was Frost talking to you … It was really lively. I can see why he’s such a renowned actor — he completely inhabited the role.”

According to Pease, the Theta Delta Chi fraternity sponsored Clapp’s event because Frost was a member of the organization during his time at Dartmouth. 

Local seventh grade students from Crossroads Academy performed Frost’s poetry in Sanborn Library on March 25. The event was titled “You Come Too,” named after the collection that Frost put together for children, according to Crossroads Academy teacher Steve Glazer. 

Glazer said he taught a unit on Frost, during which students went to Rauner Library to look at primary sources of Frost’s work. He said the students memorized Frost’s poems and wrote an essay to prepare for the reading.

Glazer added that he wanted his students to study Frost because they have grown up in the place that inspired him. 

“I think, in general, poetry can be seen as inaccessible,” Glazer said. “But Frost is a great American poet who inhabited [the students’ world]. It’s easier to understand when you’re walking through the landscape that inspired him — when his places are your places too.”  

Kucharczyk said she was “very impressed” by the students’ individual and group presentations, some of which were in Spanish and French.

“The students were wonderful,” she said. 

Hoffman gave a talk titled “Robert Frost’s America” on the politics of Frost’s poetry. Hoffman wrote his senior thesis on Frost and is currently working on a book about the poet, Pease said. 

According to Pease, Frost maintained deep connections with Dartmouth after he graduated. He came back to give lectures as part of the Great Issues program, according to the Dartmouth Libraries website. 

Pease added that Dartmouth’s campus remains full of infrastructure that alludes to Frost’s work. The Class of 1961 built a statue of Frost behind Bartlett Tower and commissioned the wall that Frost envisioned in “Mending Wall” last year, Pease said. 

“This man is a Dartmouth legacy,” Pease said. “He’s a Dartmouth treasure. For this event to have been so successful was quite gratifying.” 

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