Hello and welcome to the Discourse. In 1934, Robert Frost wrote an essay titled The Figure a Poem Makes which was about the experience of writing a poem. Through this essay, Frost talked about how a poem should offer the image of the subject in the mind of the reader. The essay is all about imagery. Robert Frost was famous as a nature poet who described nature, the rural, and the wild endearingly. One such poem was Birches which was published in 1915 in The Atlantic Monthly. 'Birches' was again published in his collection of poems titled Mountain Interval in 1916. Birches are a kind of medium-sized trees or shrubs that are commonly found in North America.
Birches are supple but strong. They easily bent without breaking. As the poet observes these trees bent on a side while standing alongside straight trees, he imagines a boy swinging on them like he used to do during his childhood. However, he knows that the birches are most probably bent because of the snow that has accumulated on them after the ice storm. Despite that, he likes his imagination of a boy playing and swinging on the birches and causing them to bent.
Structure of Birches
Birches is a long poem with 59 lines written in blank verse, in unrhymed iambic pentameter with great stress on the ‘sound of sense.’ The poet considered more the sound of a natural activity while describing it in the poem than the rhyme of it. For example, the poet describes the cracking of ice on leaves and branches of the trees as “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…” The poet suggests that swinging on the birches like a young boy, or dreaming about it is like a reprieve for oneself from the harsh realities of the world for a while, to envigorate oneself, and then come back to face the truth. Frost used blank verses for this poem as it is a poem of talk, offering deep and meaningful thoughts and feelings to the reader in a meditative, reflective mode. The poem is written conversationally as the poet is talking to the readers in first person narrative.
Summary of Birches:
Lines 1-5
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
The narrator observes some birch trees bent to the sides while many other taller trees are standing straight. The poet is aware of the suppleness of birch trees as he enjoyed swinging on birch trees during his childhood. However, he notices that when a boy swings along a birch tree, it doesn’t remain bent on one side for long as it swings to the other side. This doesn’t happen when birch trees get bent because of the accumulation of snow on them after a heavy ice storm.
Lines 6-9
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
The poet continues explaining the birch trees and how they appear and behave after rain and says that the readers must have seen birch trees loaded with ice on a sunny winter morning after it has stopped raining. The birch trees produce a metallic sound like that of iron under the effect of the wind, by clicking against themselves, and become many-colored because of the cracks in their enamel caused by their movement in the wind.
Lines 10-13
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.
The sun’s warmth starts melting the ice and the snow falls from the trees like crystal shells. When these lumps of snow that appear like glass, strike the ground, they shatter into many pieces like broken glass. It appears as if the beauty of heaven has fallen on the earth.
Lines 14-20
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.
The poet then explains how the top of the birch trees are dragged and bowed down, by a load of ice accumulated on them, kissing the fern growing on the ground. The weight of ice has kept them bent for so long that even when the snow falls and shatters like broken pieces of glass, the trees cannot straighten themselves up and their trunk remains arched. The poet then offers a metaphor, suggesting that the arched trees appear as if girls are sitting on their hands and knees, with their hair spread before them 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.
While the poet is mesmerized by the beauty of birches bent due to a load of snow, he says that he would prefer to believe that the birches are bent because some by, who is living afar from the modern town to play games like baseball, went to fetch his cows and decided to play with the birch trees swinging on them. He enjoys this play irrespective of the season as he plays alone.
Line 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.
The poet furthers his imagination of the carefree boy who keeps playing with the birches. The boy swings on all the birch trees one by one as all are owned by his father. And one by one, he subdues the stiffness of all the birches until no more straight birch remains on the ground. He conquers all of them making them bent against him.
Lines 32-41
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.
The poet then explains the proper way of swinging on the birch tree without uprooting or breaking it and without getting harmed. The poet says that the boy he has imagined is smart enough to learn the proper way and he is patient as he doesn’t launch himself too soon and reaches the top branches with the utmost care, balancing himself with the same pain and care that one bestows while filling the cup to the brim, or even above the brim. Then he used to fling himself forward with his feet stretched forward, and passed gently through the air to touch the ground.
The poet says that during his childhood, he too played with the birches in the same careful, yet carefree manner as he was a patient swinger.
Lines 42-49
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 my lashed opened.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
The poet then expresses his wish, his desire to return back to childhood and enjoy the same carefree attitude. Yet the poet clarifies that he is not obsessed with this desire. But uses it as a reprieve, a way to refresh himself. He dreams of going back to childhood when he is too tired of his duties as a grown-up man and when his worries and struggles take a toll on him. Then in such moments, he decides to take a break and forget all his troubles and worries and think like that boy, like he was during his childhood. This momentary recluse offers him a chance to reinvigorate himself and return back to his present self refreshed. He then takes on his life with a better attitude and confidence.
Lines 50-59
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.
The poet then stresses that he is no escapist and prays that nobody, not even his fate should consider him an escapist who is trying to run away from his duties, burdens, and life. He claims that he doesn’t wish to escape from the earthly world and its realities as he believes that the earth is the right place for love, and he does not know of a better place than where he is now. Thus, if the birches can lead him to a better place (to heaven), then he would like to go towards heaven by swinging upon a birch tree that takes him back to the earth, to the ground realities. The poet says that it would be good for him to keep going away from the real world to get some rest and return back to conquer his struggles as one does while swinging. In the last line, the poet says that anyone who doesn’t like to swing on the birch trees to keep a balance between facts and fancy is worse than the swinger of the birches. A person may get tired, puzzled, and defeated by the harsh realities of life. He may choose to make use of fancies like the poet's dreams of returning to his childhood and enjoying swinging on birches, but it cannot be a road to escapism, it is just a way to reinvigorate oneself because there is no place better than his real life as Earth is the right place for love.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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