CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN INDIA (ISSN 2231-2137): VOL. 5: ISSUE: 2
ROBERT FROST’S BIRCHES: A CRITICAL APPRECIATION
Nirmal.A.R, Kamal, Kannamba, Varkala PO Trivandrum, Kerala
Abstract: Robert Frost is often considered as the unofficial poet laureate of America. If his poetry showed a distinct love for the
rural New England, it was no accident.He started his living as a farmer and craftsman before turning to poetry.So he had the
first hand knowledge of farms, fields and the men who toiled in them.He observed them like no one else, presenting their unsung
lives with fresh images sprinkled with delightful wisdom. It is often told that a typical Frost poem begins in delight, and ends in
wisdom. They start by describing a particular sight or imagery that has caught the poet’s attention. Frost goes on to explore the
various aspects of it in a light hearted manner and adds his wisdom that makes us view that experience in a different light
altogether.This article traces the major hallmarks of Frost’s Poetry in one of the more loved poem of his-The Birches.Technical
innovations and imagery of the poem is analysed keeping focus on the delightful wisdom that the poem offers.
Key words: Birches,’sound of sense’, ice storms, Birch-Swinging.
Robert Frost is often considered as the
unofficial poet laureate of America. If his poetry
showed a distinct love for the rural New England, it
was no accident.He started his living as a farmer and
craftsman before turning to poetry.So he had the
first hand knowledge of farms, fields and the men
who toiled in them.He observed them like no one
else, presenting their unsung lives with fresh images
sprinkled with delightful wisdom. It is often told that
a typical Frost poem begins in delight, and ends in
wisdom. They start by describing a particular sight or
imagery that has caught the poet’s attention. Frost
goes on to explore the various aspects of it in a light
hearted manner and adds his wisdom that makes us
view that experience in a different light altogether.
Birches is one such poem which begins in
wisdom and ends in delight. In this poem Robert
Frost speaks about one of the major leisure time
activities of New England children- swinging on
Birches. This nostalgic memory is evoked in him by
the sight of Birches that are swung left and right.The
poet loves to think that the birches had been swung
that way by the mischief of some adventurous
kid.But as he himself had once been a swinger of
Birches he knows that such an effort would never
bend them in a permanent way. Only ice storms can
do that. In winter mornings one could find Branches
of birches loaded with ice. The branches produce a
clicking sound as they move against each other in
the wind.The cracks turn multicoloured in the
sunlight.As the temperature goes up the branches
sheds the ‘crystal shells’.It would be quite a big job to
sweep them away.The layers of shattered ice is
compared to the fallen dome of heaven by the
poet.Such a bending of birches is permanent and you
could see such birches ‘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’
even years afterwards.
While the poet knows for sure that the
birches are bent by an ice storm he says that he
would still like to think it as the handiwork of some
mischievous boy. He imagines a lonesome rural boy
who is far away from the town to learn baseball or
other games that the urban kids play.To kill his
boredom he sets on to conquer the trees on his yard.
He climbs each one of them and by riding down
them over and again took the stiffness out of
them.He becomes the master of the art of climbing
and swinging trees. He learns how to climb to the
very top of the tree, to keep poise and to launch at
the right moment.Poet was one such boy-a master of
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the lost art of swinging the birches. He goes on to
connect this nostalgic memory with his present day
situation. When life becomes harsh and going gets
difficult he wishes he could escape to somewhere for
a bit, to comeback and start anew, just like a swinger
of birches. He wants to escape from the pathless
wood of life by climbing a birch tree toward heaven
and jump back to the hustle of life just like the
adventurous kid he had once been.
One should also note that poet holds nothing
against life or has no regret living it. He does not
wish to escape from it altogether.He does not want
some fate wilfully misunderstand him and snatch
away his life. He loves living life and considers earth
the right place for love.He can't imagine a better
place to live.What he wants is not a permanent
escape from life, but rather a temporary
distraction.He want to escape from his troubles for a
moment to savour the joy of adventure. After this
short trip he intends to come back.And so he would
like to climb a birch,go heavenward and then come
down.It would be good both going and coming back.
For a poem which recalls a child hood
nostalgic memory birches employs some explicit
sexual imagery. The linesOne 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.
–have sexual over tones.
This imagery is perhaps more sensual:
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
Poet is probably yearning not only for the
lost childhood but also the innocence he lost along
with it.
By saying that the ‘inner dome of heaven had fallen’
he refutes the conservative ideas of heaven and
hell.He does not put his faith in some promise of
bliss after his death but believes happiness is here
and now.
Earth is the right place for love:
I don't know where it is likely to go better.
The poet does encounter certain hardships in
his life.His ‘face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
while ‘one eye is weeping from a twig’s having lashed
across it open’. Still he does not wish to stop living
eyeing some everlasting happiness on another place.
He just wants to reclaim his ability as a BirchSwinger. If he is able to regain that spark of his
childhood when he was an adventurous soul he
believes he would be able to face his misfortunes
with more grace. Escaping from life is not an option
for the poet.He believes in letting go and starting
anew.
Birch tree is the best vehicle to express this
idea.It is rooted in the land while its bark move
upward yearning for the heaven.The tree connects
heaven and earth.Birch tree can be considered as a
symbol of the poet’s craft.Poet is very much a
worldly man connected to the hustle and bustle of
the daily life.When the life gets difficult he has always
an option to fall back to his craft-he can leave the
real world behind and fly away from it using his
imagination.His imaginative faculty gives him an
option to escape from the real world at will.This
ability which he cultivated over the years enables him
to stride over the misfortunes with grace.He holds
nothing against the world for he has this ability to go
back and start over again.
Frost’s poetry uses `colloquial language,
familiar rhythms and symbols taken from common
life to express the simple values of New England
life.He follows the American traditions illustrated
byWordsworth,Emerson and Dickinson.His themes
which are surprisingly simple go with this
unpretentious technique.Birches is written in blank
verse with special emphasis on the technique of
‘sound of sense’.
Consider these linesThey click upon themselves
As the breeze rises ,and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the suns’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust
He selects his syllables in such a was as to
create a visceral sense of the action taking place. We
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could practically hear the ‘clicking of branches’,
cracking of ice and the sound of falling snow as we
read these lines.Poet is not satisfied by describing the
pictorial aspect of the scene that he watches.
Birches goes further and appeals to our other senses
as well.
The poem was originally called ‘Swinging
Birches’ which is perhaps a more accurate title. Poem
is not about the tree but rather on the action of
swinging on it. It is said that Frost was inspired by
another poem ‘Swinging on a Birch-tree’ by
American poet Lucy Larcom. Primary source of the
poem must have been Frost’s own child hood
experiences as a Birch-Swinger.Frost once told ‘it
was almost sacrilegious climbing a birch tree till it
bent, till it gave and swooped to the ground, but that
is what boys did in those days. Frost encounters bent
birches many years later and they remind him about a
golden period in life. He wish he had the enthusiasm
and innocence he once had as a child. But the poem
or the poet never falls to the trap of pessimism. He
gathers energy from the past while viewing future
with confidence. His only wish is to escape from the
harsh realities of the present every now and then, to
refresh himself. When he was a boy it was easy for
him to climb a Birch tree to entertain himself.As an
adult it becomes difficult to let go and start anew.
Being adventurous is treated next to being
irresponsible in the adult world. Anyone who refuses
to move along with the heard is viewed suspiciously
by the society. Poet wants to break free from the
constraints society has imposed upon him. A child
has no knowledge of the watchful society that
imposes rules. If poet could reclaim that lost
childhood innocence he is sure to be better equipped
to face the dark realities that suffocate him.
Birches is also a poem about Truth. Poet
knows very well that permanent bending of Birches
can be brought about only by an ice storm.Still he
likes to think that it is done by some energetic
prankster.
Sometimes bending the truth a bit makes us
see reality in another light which makes it more
delightful.
Truth is at times cold and uninviting.A pinch
of fantasy make the truth appealing and
wondrous.The narrator cannot avoid returning to the
‘Truth’ and responsibilities of the ground.He wishes
only for a temporary escape-either as an imaginative
writer or as a climber of Birches.He is ready to come
down to reality after his brief suspension of it.
Birches captures the nostalgic memory of a
New England boy and fuses it into the worldly
wisdom of the grown up man he has become.Like all
poems of Robert Frost it begins in wisdom and ends
in delight.
Works cited:
1. Gould, Jean. Robert Frost-The Aim was Song. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1964. Print.
2. J Greiner, Donald.Robert Frost,The Poet and his Critics.Chicago:American Library Association, 1974.
Print.
3. Frost, Robert. The Complete Works of Robert Frost. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Print.
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