Birches by Robert Frost

Robert Frost (1874 –1963) was an American poet having his roots in
New England. He loved Nature with great passion. He would walk in
the countryside for long hours reveling in the small things he saw
along his path – the woods, the streams, the meadows, and the snow-
capped landscape in winter. Frost saw what we all see when we roam
around, but he noticed many things that we all miss. Frost discovered
rare beauty in the ordinary things he saw. However, as he walked, his
contemplative mind took him through the many trials and tribulations
of the humdrum life we live. It is difficult to ignore the philosophical
undertones, the sense of resignation, and the streaks of optimism in
Frost’s poems. In ‘Birches’, the poet looks around the snow-covered
landscape where the birch trees sway back and forth carrying their
burdens of snow. They stoop, rise, bend, and yet they tenaciously
survive the onslaught of the harsh winter. ‘Birches’ must be read and
re-read as it bristles with life’s many lessons.

The poem.. Birches are a type of trees seen in the cold northern areas
of the Northern Hemisphere. Since Robert Frost lived in New England,
and wandered around the area leisurely, he must have come across
clusters of Birch trees. Winter brings down loads and loads of snow
that weigh down the Birch trees. Wind blows relentlessly swinging the
burdened tress back and forth. As Sunlight falls on the foliage, snow
melts and drops off the leaves, temporarily bringing respite to the
trees.
Meaning of first ten lines .

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

The poet surveys the woods. There are so many

species of trees. His eyes fall on the bent-down
birch trees. In contrast, the other kinds of
trees in the background stand erect. The poet
wonders if this is the handiwork of some boys
who have playfully tried to bend the trees. Soon
he reasons that it cannot be so, because the tree
would spring back to stand erect again. ‘Obviously,
the birches have bent down due to the snow
storms,’ he concludes.
The weight of the falling ice has bent the birches
down and frozen the leaves and branches making
them motionless. When sunlight falls on the trees
in a winter morning, the ice begins to thaw. The
melting ice sparkles emitting reflection of
different hues. It is a fascinating sight.

Meaning of lines 10 to 20

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

The half-molten ice crystals fall off the branches

and collect on the ground. It seems like someone
has swept broken glass pieces and gathered them
in a heap. The pile of snowflakes get carried to
the nearby fern bushes.
The birch trees, after remaining bent for long
without breaking, cannot regain their erect
posture after the ice load is gone. They assume a
somewhat hunched posture. For many years, they
remain bent when their leaves from the upper
branches grovel on the ground. Frost compares
this sight to the way girls kneel forward on their
hands to let their hair hang to dry. Similarly,
Birches stooped by the weight of ice storms can
be seen all over the woods.

Meaning of the lines 20 to 40

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

The poet is possibly lost in a momentary reverie.

He thinks it would have been much more
enjoyable to see a cowherd boy bending the birch
trees for sheer fun. Even he imagines a rich man’s
son from town coming to play baseball in the area.
The lad could expend his energy in bending down
all the birch trees in the forest. He could do it
with no fear as the woods belong to his father.
The boy would have immensely enjoyed
overpowering the trees one by one, until he was
done with all the trees in the forest. In his
enthusiasm, the boy labouriously climbs to the
upper reaches of a tree only to slip and slump on
to the ground. However, the boy takes the mishap
in his stride and bears the pain stoically. The
poet’s imagination is in full view here.
Meaning of the lines 40 to the end .

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.

Frost reminisces about his young childhood days

when he used to play with the birch trees. He
becomes nostalgic thinking of those carefree
days when life was so easy-paced and joyful. Now,
he has grown up. Life’s cares constantly gnaw at
him robbing him of innocence and happiness. The
burden of adult life has weighed him down. He
imagines, he is wading through a thicket of birch
trees, when a twig rubs against his eye.
He yearns for his childhood days. He wants to bid
adieu to this crooked unkind world, and be reborn
as a child, so that he can enjoy life with gay
abandon in the lap of the woods, the birch trees,
and the countryside.
If this is not possible, he wants his wishes to be
fulfilled at least by half. ‘This love-less, stressful
world is not his place of living,’ he bemoans. He
wants to be a child again, and climb the birch tree
till its top where the branches can’t support his
weight, and he slumps back on the ground with a
thud. He could repeat this climb-and-fall ritual
over and over again enjoying every moment of it.
With a sense of resignation, Frost feels that
nothing on earth can be better than this innocent
fun.
Question .1. What are the abstract and philosophical
elements of the poem?

Answer . Robert Frost was a westerner, but he had an innate tendency

to look within, like most intellectuals in the East do. As he sauntered
through the countryside in winter, he feasted his eyes in the birch
trees virtually cowered down by the load of snow sitting on their
branches and leaves. Robert Frost being a sensitive soul discovered
new wisdom from this. He was at odds with the daily humdrum life
that made people greedy, and selfish. He loathed such a dreary
existence, but he refused to be a pessimist.
The birches did crouch under snow, but the Sunlight dislodged the
snow off the leaves. The birch tree stood up again, to its full height
jubilantly. It defied the woes of the winter, and declared its triumph
over the curse of the cold. Warmth returned to its life. This makes
Frost optimistic, and cheerful. He feels, he can wait out the hard days
of life.
However, deep in his heart, Robert Frost loved the innocence and
simplicity of childhood, but he could not. The poem shows the rare
spiritual and philosophical streak in Frost’s mind. Few humans are
capable of such contemplation.
 MCQ
Ques 1. When was Robert Frost born?
A. 1873
B. 1874
C. 1875
D. 1876
Ans. B
Ques 2. When did Robert Frost die?
A. 1962
B. 1962
C. 1963
D. 1964
Ans. C
Ques 3. How many times Frost won Pulitzer Prize for poetry?
A. 2 Pulitzer prizes for poetry
B. 3 Pulitzer prizes for poetry
C. 4 Pulitzer prizes for poetry
D. 5 Pulitzer prizes for poetry
Ans. C
Ques 4. In 1961, Robert Frost was made
A. Poet Laureate of New England
B. Poet Laureate of New York
C. Poet Laureate of Vermont
D. Poet Laureate of California

Ans. C
Ques 5. Birches poem was included in which poetry collection of
Frost
A. Mountain Interval
B. A Boy’s will
C. North of Boston
D. New Hampshire
Ans. A
 Ques 6. Birches show Frost as a
A. Love Poet
B. Nature Poet
C. Spiritual Poet
D. Poet of Death
Ans. B

Ques 7. Forst’s poem Birches is inspired from

A. Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
B. La Belle Dame sans merci by John Keats
C. Swinging on a Birch-tree by Lucy Larcom
D. Milton’s Paradise Lost
Ans. C

Ques 8. "Birches" first appeared in

A. Spectator
B. The Prelude
C. The Idler
D. Atlantic Monthly
Ans. D

Ques 9. Where did Frost spend most of his teenage years?

A. Lawrence, Massachusetts
B. Boston, Massachusetts
C. San Francisco, California
D. Franconia, New Hampshire

Ans. A

Ques 10. What was the title of the first poem that Frost published
professionally?
A. Two Roads Diverged in a Wood
B. Fire and Ice
C. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
D. My Butterfly: An Elegy
 Ans. D

Ques 11. In the poem "Birches," what does the poet like to think causes
the branches to bend?
A. The wind blowing
B. A boy swinging on them
C. The rain
D. The weight of ice from an ice storm
Ans. B

Ques 12. When was 'Birches' published?

A. 1900
B. 1916
C. 1925
D. 1941
Ans. B

Ques 13. . In what poetic form is 'Birches' written in?

 Blank verse.
 Heroic couplet.
 Sonnet.
 There is no strict poetic form in the poem.
Ans. A

Ques 14. What is one thing that the act of swinging might symbolize?
 The importance of scientific truth.
 The desire to escape reality.
 The desire for radical political changes.
 The importance of understanding formal philosophy.

 Ans. B
Ques 15. Frost's poetry is primarily based upon New England life.
Where was he actually born?
Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
California
Nevada
Ans. C

Ques 16. “Birches” poem's title originally comes from a line in

Shakespeare's play, "Macbeth." Which poem is it?

Desert Places
A Boundless Moment
Departmental
Out, Out
Ans. D

Ques 17. "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" is a line from
"Mending Wall". What is the "something" mentioned?
men/society
good neigbors
hunters/dogs
nature/narrator
Ans. D

Ques 18. What actually bends the birches down to stay in Frost's poem,
"Birches"?
children playing on them
broken branches
 heavy rains
ice storms
Ans. D

Ques 19. . Robert Frost, the quintessential New England poet,

spent his first eleven years in what place?
 Derry, Massachusetts
 Londonderry, New Hampshire
 London, England
 San Francisco, California
Ans. D

Ques 20. From which poem is the following line extracted?

“Earth’s the right place for love.”
 “Mowing”
 “Birches”
 “The Earth and other Places for Love”
 “Desert Places”
Ans. B