ShyamS

"**//Birches//**" by Robert Frost Voicethread link: [|"Birches" 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 5 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 10 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 15 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. 20 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, 25 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, 30 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 35 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. 40 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 45 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 not fate willfully misunderstand me 50 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 55 //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.

TPCASTT for the Poem:


 * Title - ** Although the title of this poem is “Birches”, the subject seems to be mainly about birch “swinging”. The speaker likens birch swinging to getting “away from the earth awhile” and then coming back. The speaker sees bent birch trees and imagines them being bent because of boys “swinging” them, which is why the title is “Birches”.


 * Paraphrase – ** Basically, this poem is dealing with the contrasting emotions of the speaker’s imagination versus reality. In reality, the speaker realizes that the Birches are bent and curved due to the heaviness of the ice hanging upon them during the winter. However, the speaker attempts to magnify the idea that young boys swinging upon the birches cause their bent shapes. Even the speaker himself used to swing upon the trees just as a young boy and dreams of going back to those days. He tries to say that while swinging, you sort of get away from reality and then enter back on the way down.


 * Connotation ** – **Form**: The form of this poem is written in blank verse, with some variations showing iambic foot. **Language**: Most of the language in this poem seems to be conversational and slightly humorous. The speaker is clearly having an insight with himself or with another person when describing the birches. **Imagery**: In the beginning of the poem, the speaker uses the powerful image of the playful boy as a means to explain why the trees are bent. Also, in lines 10, 11 and 12 the speaker uses imagery to describe snow falling from the tall birch trees as “crystal shells”, “shattering”, and as “broken glass”. This use of imagery describes how magnificent the birch trees must have looked glossed with wintery snow. **Symbolism**: Several symbolic ideas are presented in lines 12-20. In line 13, Frost makes a break where he writes “You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.” This line not only foreshadows the last lines of the poem, but also sparks the beginning of the speaker’s departure from reality and the real world. Also, Frost says that the birches are bowed so that they can never right themselves; there is an image of a girl which could represent a captive kneeling before her captor (which could be reality). **Simile**: Frost uses a smile when comparing the bowed birch trees to girls on all fours, describing their hair hanging down in front of them.


 * Attitude ** – The speaker’s attitude toward birch trees is contantly changing and unsteady throughout the poem. The speaker first begins by saing that the birch trees become bent and worn because of young boys swinging upon them, leading to a somewhat cheerful attitude. A couple lines later, the speaker takes on a more relalistic attitude toward why the birches are bent, blaming it on the heavy weight of ice on the branches from ice storms. Frost soon however returns to the more cheerful view of the birches. The speaker tries to escape reality almost and mostly takes an imaginative attitude toward the subject, wishing he were a young boy who could escape reality for once and swing on the very birch trees he describes.


 * Shifts – ** Frost first opens the poem with an image of birch trees bent “left and right/across the lines of straighter darker trees (lines 1-2) and then puts an imaginative explaination for how they got that way. The poem has its first break in line 5 when Frost admits that it is ice storms, not boys, who bend down the birch trees. Frost makes yet another break in line 13 when he raises the symbolic level of the poem. Another significant break occurs in lines 21-27, when Frost dismisses the ice storm as a cause of the bent birches and goes back to his original idea that a boy playing upon them, had bent them.


 * Theme ** – The main images and ideas involved in this poem are birch trees that have been bowed down so that they can no longer stand up straight but look more arched over. While the speaker establishes that he knows the cause of their bentness, he shifts from one idea to another. The main theme of this poem is the distinction between the real world and the world of the imagination.


 * Title ** – The title of this poem plays a very important role in the interpretation of the poem. The title is “Birches”, but the subject is finding the real distinctions between truth and imagination. The overall idea is that we have the earth below, we have the world of the treetops above, and we have the motion between these two areas. The focus of this poem has to deal with the motion of swinging and escaping reality temporarily by swinging upon a birch tree.

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