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-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
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
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.
Notes
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.
The lyrical form of this poem is unrhyming.
5. Ice-storms do that. "As ice-storms do." in Robert Frost, Collected Poems,
Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995), p. 117 (a later, revised text).
14. bracken: a fern with large leaves and creeping roots, often found in clusters.
23. Line omitted in Library of America edition.
56. a snow-white trunk: birches have a white bark.
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Great
something great and highly imaginative poem. -
this has definately influenced my writing. blank verse is hard for some people, but i enjoy reading it.
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Classic
Birches is a favorite to most school rooms and rightly so. The melancholy sensation that he stirs with his conversational diction... In his other classic "The Road Not Taken" Frost also seems to be "reflecting". Seems as though it was a feeling that he conveyed well.
"May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return."
I love it when he reasons aloud (again, conversational qualities). Such brilliance... I can't wait to study him in college. -
This was one of my first poems which introduced me to Frost. Even know after ten years I find it as powerful and the day I first read it. I often wonder why he wrote this and what he was thinking, but that is only for the Poet to know i guess.
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This really brought me back to my childhood where trees were often the focus of our youth and we always were around them just because the way nature made us feel. I really enjoyed this, and would love to study it's construction as a poem. If anyone reads these comments and knows where I could do that, please let me know. This poem would be well worth taking the time to study.
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Another piece by Frost I enjoyed. It reminded me of my youth when I used to climb trees. Though I never jumped out of one I did enjoy climbing them.
I used to jump out of swings, but never trees.
It sort of, in the beginning, carred itself away a bit but then it went right back to the topic at hand.
A playful piece, a great piece by Frost.
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I had to memorize it for a class porject a few years ago, too, on;y it was really easy. It's still in my head everyday. This poem is the first poem I ever read and it's the reason I started writing in the first place. I love all of Robert Frost's works, but this is by far the best thing I've ever read. I had my mom read it one day, but she didn't get it, so I had here read it again, but she still didn't get it. I tried to exlain the whole thing about poetry, but that too was too much for her to handle. See, each piece means different things to different people. to me, "Birches" meant that childhood is over all too quickly and we should try to slow down. Anyways, I believe I have written enough. Check out my wotk and don't forget to smile!
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When I was a sophomore, I had to memorize this poem and recite it in class. It was not really easy to memorize, but I was able to do it, and I've had a soft spot for this poem ever since. I think my favorite part was where Frost was referencing reincarnation-- very very cool.
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This is my favorite poem of all time. I did a report on Robert Frost when I was really young, and I read this poem to the class.
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This is a great poem; I enjoy how Frost personifies the tree to imagine having youth again!
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