Birches by Robert Frost | Structure, Summary, Analysis

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.
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.
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.
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[@user-ed1bn3wg5g]

Very nice 👍❤

[@rajveer5230]

Great explanation sir 😃

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[@RupalTiwari2]

Nice ✨ vdo

[@reshmaappanna9275]

Sir, with due respect, your printed content is just too good, but the way you read with no intonation, no proper pronunciation makes it the most boring video. Please take someone's help to read and express it aptly. I am ready to do it. Sincere regards😊

[@varunbhawsinghka4935]

Poet pronunciation 🙂

[@TheDiscourse]

It's pronounced as "pow-unt' with silent 'n'