Robert Frost

Birches

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-coloured
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.

Truth broke in

Frost capitalizes Truth like a person interrupting his fantasy. He's staging the poem as a conflict between what he wants to believe (the boy) and what actually happens (ice-storms).

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.
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

Launching out too soon

The physics: climb too high before the tree bends, you go down with it and hit hard. Wait for the bend, you ride it safely. The boy learns timing through trial and error.

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.

Half grant what I wish

He's afraid of actual death—being taken to heaven permanently. The whole poem hinges on temporary escape, not permanent exit. 'Half grant' would mean dying instead of just getting a break.

May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Half grant what I wish

He's afraid of actual death—being taken to heaven permanently. The whole poem hinges on temporary escape, not permanent exit. 'Half grant' would mean dying instead of just getting a break.

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,

Black branches, snow-white trunk

Birch trees actually have white bark and dark branches. This isn't metaphor—it's the literal color reversal you see climbing up a birch in winter.

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.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Poem's Architecture: Fantasy vs. Fact

The poem is built in three movements, and Frost tells you exactly when he's switching gears. Lines 1-20 describe ice-storms bending birches—pure observation, almost scientific in detail ("click upon themselves," "crazes their enamel"). Then "But I was going to say when Truth broke in" (line 21)—he admits he was about to lie to you. Lines 23-40 give the fantasy he prefers: a farm boy swinging birches. Lines 41-59 reveal why he needs that fantasy: adult exhaustion.

Notice Frost doesn't hide the structure. He interrupts himself, capitalizes "Truth" like a nagging person, admits "I should prefer" the boy story. This isn't a poet trying to fool you—it's a poet showing you how he talks himself through despair. The ice-storm truth is permanent damage ("they never right themselves"). The boy fantasy is temporary escape with safe return.

CONTEXT Frost wrote this around 1913-14, in England, homesick for New Hampshire and struggling with depression. He'd left farming to try full-time poetry—a risky move in his late 30s with four kids. The "pathless wood" where "your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs" isn't abstract. It's the actual experience of walking through overgrown New England woods, but also the feeling of being lost in middle age.

The Physics of the Metaphor

The swinging technique Frost describes is real and specific. "Not launching out too soon" means: climb until your weight bends the tree, then let go. Launch from too high up (before the tree bends), you fall straight down with the tree. The boy "always kept his poise / To the top branches"—he waits until the tree is already bending under him, then kicks off. It's a controlled descent, not a fall.

The metaphor maps precisely to the poem's emotional argument. Frost wants to escape earth ("I'd like to get away from earth awhile") but not permanently ("And then come back to it and begin over"). Too much escape—actual death, madness, total withdrawal—means you don't return. The skill is in the timing: bend but don't break, leave but come back.

"Earth's the right place for love" is the poem's hinge line. Not heaven, not fantasy, not escape—earth. But earth is also the "pathless wood" that exhausts him. The poem doesn't resolve this contradiction. It just says: sometimes you need to bend away to keep from breaking permanently. "One could do worse than be a swinger of birches"—not "one could do better." It's a modest claim for a modest coping mechanism.