Birches by Robert Frost line by line explanation

 

At the outset of the poem speaker tells that whenever he finds stooped birch trees which is quite different from the dark wood trees, he likes to imagine that the bent is caused by some boys as they swing it down left and right. But, the speaker knows the fact that swinging cannot bend them down because the ice storms strike hard. Thus, one can spot out the load of ice above the trees when morning awakes the sun. when the wind blows, the branches wearing a mantle of snow  strike against each other and produces a cracking sound similar to iron. Frost’s phenomenal and acute observation of nature is discernible here. When the wind start blowing even a mild ray of sunlight passing through the ice forms the multi-coloured wonder, the glory of the rainbow. The sun vehemently attacks the ice covered branches and causes them a rapid fall.   

 

The poet feels the crystals of ice like the ‘heaps of broken glass’. He goes on imagining that the crystals of ice are really pieces of the dome of heaven that has fallen down. It wipes out the withered bracken (ferns/unwanted plants). 

 

The branches of the birches shall never shatter. They also never return to their previous heights after having been bent for so long. the branches shall remain curving towards the ground forever.  The leaves hang down just like the hands, knees and the hair as well.  Leaving it to hang like it dries in the sun.

At this moment speaker return from the fancy towards the focus point. In fact the speaker wants to say that a boy has bent it down to fetch his cows. And someone far from the town is there to practice baseball. But he literally plays among the trees by swinging it. Gradually, he bends down all the birches in his father’s orchard. The trees became flexible by swinging it over and over again. He conquered every single tree as he was extremely fond of swinging.

 

The boy becomes the expert swinger of the birches. He acquires all the skill required for it even he manages to reach at the top. The trees quickly falls and bend towards the ground. The boy keeps the balances as he climbed all the way up to the branches. He climbs carefully as well as fills a cup. He even moves beyond the top. After reaching at the top he jumps out to the ground by swinging his leg and reaches safely in the ground.

 

The speaker recollects the fact that he too was a swinger of the birches and he dreams of going back to do this again. This kind of dreams comes up as the speaker feels frustrations and disappointments in everyday life. 

 

Life itself feels like void and pathless. ‘The pathless wood’ and the ‘cobweb’ symbolise the confusions and bewilderment of a modern man in this sophisticated world. The spider web can simply troubles the faces and even a small stick causes big wounds.

Just like John Keats mentions in his much celebrated poem ‘ode to a nightingale’, the speaker wants to escape from the troubled world and also come back a restart a better life. He recommends his fate not to misunderstand him. This is because his life brings only disillusionments and he really wants to fade far away and does not want to come back either.

 

But the speaker still believes that earth is the fine place to love and there is no other place where things go better. The speaker wants to enter to the world of fancy by climbing the birch tree. Climbing the zenith to reach heaven. 

 

The tree can no longer affords the weight, it slowly bents down and the speaker lands the ground. The speaker remarks that this kind of escapism and eventual coming back really feels interesting.      

The poem ends with a lighter note that one can think about worse than be a swinger of birches. 

The poem ‘birches’ is a typical romantic poem as it contains all the essential ingredients of romanticism such as the beauty of nature, nostalgia, dream imagination and escapism.

The poem also underscores the aches of modernity and presents the predicament of a modern man.

Anxiety, frustration, helplessness, disillusionment and despair everything comes together with life. As every other poems of Robert Frost, Birches too begins in delight and ends in wisdom.