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.
Ice-storms do that. 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-coloured
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 wilfully 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.
Birches
Analysis, meaning and summary of Robert Frost's poem Birches
51 Comments
Leave a Reply
Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Robert Frost better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.
This poem has such beautiful imagery: it nicely constrasts winter and summer, youth and aging, harshness and innocence – i love it
I am researching Robert Frost for school and i came across this poem. Once you take the time to read it, its a very sweet poem.
I just read this poem for the first time this morning and I have thought of it all day. Wondeful imagery of the ice storm and then he drifts off from that reality to a dream of swinging on birches as a boy, and of the trees ending to him. I wish I could swing with such abandon up to the heavens and then return to the ground, over and over, each time a fresh start. I love this poem.
after reading birches, i want to observe nature more closely. you can also try.
I get hot ‘down there’ when I hear this poem. O so hot!
You can listen to this poem at http://www.robertfrostoutloud.com – check it out!
This poem makes me get roudy
Its my favourite, just read it again and again and you will smile
The poem is an excellent symbolic representation of our mundane existence which is made fruitful by spiritual aspirations.Frost makes the best use of different techniques like simile, metaphor, onamatopoea, alliteration etc. I firmly believe that the poem has no sexual connotations as some would think.
That thing where you take the r in birches and replace it with the t is funny as hell
i have never read this poem. i guess i should by all the nice comments you are getting.
You know, if you replace the letter “R” in the word birches with a letter “T”, the poem becomes a lot funnier.
to have the free spirit of youth and innocence be inmortalized in this way is tribute to mr frost’s talent and insight. great poem one of my favorites
If one thinks that this poem stinks like poo – it would be my thought that one has not had the pleasure at a younger age of swinging from birches and the memory of the freedom feeling. Oh how wonderful the feeling was and how great the memory. I love the poem.
this poem is totally stupid and it reeks like poo
this is one of my favorite poems by Frost. at my high school, we were taught the analysis of the innocent boy, swinging on birch trees. our teacher told us that Frost admired youth and innocence, but later, my friend and i analyzed it in a different way, and found that this poem is also very sexual. see if you can interpret this poem that we did. our teacher was very surprised that we could find such an analysis at our age, have fun!
This and “Stopping By Woods” were my favorites in High School. Never knew why, but now that I’m well past 60 I see things I missed when I was younger. I see how old scars and pain can be seen in people long after the events that caused them. In Frost’s words..though they never break, they never right themselves. Wonderful poem…wonderful man.
This poem is my favorite when i saw the movie here on earth i feel in love with it. It makes me fell good about my youth. i wish i had as much talent as Mr. Frost.
A great poem it just awsome it just great i love it alot.
This poem was a favorite of my English Prof. at Dickinson College. He read it to us, and told us he also was a swinger of birches. I’ve always loved it. I looked it up to send to a friend in Canada who has a retirement home near Lake Winnipeg, and surrounded, by Birches!