Birches
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
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
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.
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
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.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
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
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.
Summary
Whenever the speaker sees stooped birch trees, which stand out against the surrounding upright trees, the speaker likes to imagine that they're bent this way because a young boy has been holding onto their thin upper branches and then, with the flexible trees in hand, swinging to the ground. That said, the speaker knows that swinging from the trees doesn't actually cause them to stay bent down the way ice-storms do.
Most people, the speaker posits, have seen birch trees covered in ice on bright mornings after a winter's rain. Birches like this scratch against one another in the wind, the ice around the branches glinting as it begins to crack. Before long, the sun heats up the ice-covered branches and causes the fine layers of ice to fall, breaking across the hard crust that the snow has created on the ground. Falling and breaking like this creates so many shards of ice that one might think some kind of sphere in heaven has shattered and fallen to earth. The birches get so weighted down by the ice that they sink to the level of scraggly, unhealthy ferns. They never break under this strain, though they also never return to their previous height after having been bent for so long. This is why passerby will notice such trees curving toward the ground for years after they've been bent, their leaves hanging down in the same way that hair might drape from the heads of young girls when they toss it forward while on their hands and knees, leaving it to hang like that as it dries in the sun.
At this point, the speaker returns to the original focus of the poem, having gotten wrapped up in describing the effect of ice storms. Originally, the speaker meant to say that it's preferable to imagine that a boy bent the birch trees by swinging from them on his way to tend to his family's cows. This boy, the speaker imagines, lived too deep in the woods to play baseball in town, and instead had to find his own source of entertainment, amusing himself all through the year. Gradually, the boy bent all the birches on his father's property by swinging from their tops, which made the trees flexible and droopy. He did this so much, in fact, that there weren't any birches in the area that hadn't succumbed to him.
The boy learned how to safely swing from the birch trees, learning that it's important to not jump before reaching the part where the trunk is most flexible, since otherwise the tree could snap and fall quickly to the ground. The boy maintained his composure as he climbed all the way up to the highest branches, moving with the same care one might use when slowly filling a cup to the very top or even just beyond the top. Then, when he reached the top of the tree, he jumped out and swung his legs gracefully through the air as he gradually sailed to the ground.
The speaker used to be the kind of boy who swung from birch trees like this, and now fantasizes about one day swinging from the birches again. This fantasy crops up when the speaker becomes overwhelmed by the details and frustrations of everyday life—an experience that is like trying to navigate through a stretch of woods without any kind of trail, as trees and spider webs assault the speaker's face, which gets scratched by a small stick that cuts across the eye.
The speaker says that it would be nice to escape earth for a bit and then, after a little while, return and start all over again. This is not to say that the speaker wants some kind of omniscient being to misinterpret and partially fulfill this wish by taking the speaker away from earth for good without any chance of return. The speaker believes that earth is the only place to fully enjoy things like love, and there's no other place where things might be better than they are here. The speaker wants to die by climbing a birch tree, scaling its dark branches and its snow-covered trunk in the direction of heaven, until the speaker got so high that the tree could no longer support the weight and slowly bent over to place the speaker back on the ground. This feeling of escaping earth while also returning to it, the speaker says, would be very nice. There are worse things than being someone who swings from birch trees.
Themes
The Joy of Childhood
“Birches” explores children's ability to find joy and wonder in everyday life. The speaker contemplates ice-covered birch trees that have stooped to the ground, imagining that they’re bent because a young boy has been climbing them, jumping off while holding their thin uppermost branches and then drifting slowly back to the ground. This, the speaker imagines, is what the young boy does to entertain himself when he’s on his way to care for his family’s cows—a task that would otherwise probably be boring and mundane. In this way the poem becomes a celebration of youthful spontaneity and joy—qualities that the poem implies are no better embodied than by imaginative, care-free children.
The speaker particularly admires how children are able to find ways of having fun even when they’re in seemingly boring circumstances. For example, the speaker imagines that the boy swinging from the trees lives too far from town to play baseball, meaning that he’s left to his own devices to keep himself entertained. This, however, doesn’t stop the boy from fully enjoying life. Instead of mindlessly completing his chores, the boy finds an inventive way of harnessing joy, turning to his surroundings and finding a way to thrill himself by swinging from the trees. This childlike ability to squeeze happiness and excitement out of life, the speaker implies, is a marvelous thing.
What’s more, the speaker subtly suggests that these kinds of life experiences aren’t just fun, but important parts of the coming of age process. “He learned all there was / To learn about not launching out too soon,” the speaker says, suggesting that the boy knows not to jump before reaching the flexible part of the tree, since this might cause the tree to snap when he jumps, thus sending him plummeting to the ground.
On a broader level, this teaches the boy how to seek excitement and thrills safely—especially since the idea of “not launching out too soon” can be applied to many areas of life, ultimately emphasizing the importance of patience and thinking things through. In turn, the speaker applauds children’s ability to enjoy life while also insinuating that this process of having fun is an essential part of growing up, since it informs the way children learn to navigate adulthood.
The Tedious Reality of Adulthood
The speaker frames adulthood as mundane, stressful, and bogged down by boring details and responsibilities. This is why the speaker covets the imaginative period of childhood, when it is easier to ignore the drudgery of everyday life in favor of a more inspired, fun-loving outlook. In turn, the speaker implies that the humdrum realities of adult life chip away at people until they no longer stop to enjoy the world in creative, spontaneous ways.
Even though the speaker knows that the birch trees are bent because they’re covered in ice, the speaker prefers to think that a boy has been swinging through them and causing them to droop. This, in turn, is a sign that the speaker is nostalgic for childhood and wants to ignore the boring details of everyday life. The speaker is well aware that a boy “swinging” from the trees wouldn’t actually “bend” the wood in this way, yet still says, “I should prefer to have some boy bend them,” revealing an intentional effort to deny reality. The speaker demonstrates a desire to view the world with excitement and wonder instead of always thinking logically.
Of course, it’s not always so easy for the speaker to view the world this way. Indeed, the speaker wants to imagine a child swinging through the trees, but ends up launching into an extensive account of how ice builds up on branches. The speaker describes this as “Truth br[eaking] in” and interfering with this fantasy, an idea that shows how hard it is to prioritize imagination over reality as an adult.
This, then, suggests that the speaker is literally unable to ignore reality in favor of a more exciting, whimsical worldview, especially since it isn’t until after this long-winded description of icy branches that the speaker finally imagines a cheerful child having fun in the woods. Consequently, readers see that even the speaker—who actively wants to escape the boring details of the real world—feels the pull of logic and reason, which distracts from more fun, imaginative perspectives.
Nonetheless, the speaker hopes to somehow regain a lighthearted and creative worldview. With this in mind, the speaker “dream[s] of going back to be” the kind of person who swings through trees. However, something is standing in the way: the boring but inarguable facts of reality. In keeping with this, the speaker is most likely inhibited by old age, since it’s undeniably hard for frail old people to shimmy up trees.
What’s more, there seems to be some kind of emotional block keeping the speaker from acting spontaneously—perhaps because adulthood has stamped out the speaker’s will to seek out thrills or childish delights. Either way, what’s clear is that adulthood has changed the way the speaker moves through the world, making it harder to set aside practical “considerations” in favor of excitement, joy, or pleasure.
Death, Spirituality, and Escape
In some ways, the speaker appears ready to embrace death, expressing a certain willingness to leave life behind. And yet, the speaker also rejects the theoretical allure of heaven in favor of the pull of earthly life. It becomes clear that the speaker longs to experience the transcendent feeling of escape that death would provide, but doesn’t ultimately want to give up the pleasures of being alive—and with it, the possibility of again experiencing love, wonder, and joy.
The speaker uses simple metaphorical imagery to illustrate the desire to escape life as it is. Throughout the poem, the speaker talks about a young boy climbing birch trees and then sailing to the ground after reaching the flexible treetops. For the most part, the speaker talks about this in order to demonstrate the extent to which children are capable of finding joy in life. However, the idea of climbing a tree only to be set back down on the ground after reaching the top is also a metaphor for the desire to get away from the speaker’s own current existence while also knowing that this escape will not be permanent.
In keeping with this, the speaker says that it would be nice, to “get away from earth for awhile.” This suggests that the speaker wouldn’t mind being removed from everyday life, which has perhaps become monotonous and unrewarding in the speaker’s old age.
However, the speaker apparently has no interest in leaving life behind in favor of an afterlife, as evidenced by the fact that the speaker only wants to climb “toward heaven”—not actually to heaven. As such, it’s clear that the speaker wants the cathartic and liberating feeling of escaping adult life but is completely uninterested in any kind of true death or religious transcendence, since this would mean permanently giving up earthly existence—something the speaker has no intention of doing.
After all, the speaker thinks that life on earth is worth sticking around for, saying, “Earth’s the right place for love: / I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.” Although the poem doesn’t focus on love, this assertion showcases the speaker’s belief that earthly life is full of good things like love that are worth living for, even when one yearns to leave other aspects of life behind. What the speaker is after, then, isn’t death, but the opportunity to get some distance from the drudgery of life so that the beautiful parts of existence—like love or childish wonder—can be experienced anew. “That would be good both going and coming back,” the speaker says, confirming the impulse to both leave life behind and regain it—a dynamic exemplified by a flexible birch tree’s ability to give one the satisfaction of climbing and descending at the same time.
자작나무
꼿꼿하고 검푸른 나무 줄기 사이로 자작나무가
좌우로 휘어져 있는 걸 보면
나는 어떤 아이가 그걸 흔들고 있었다고 생각하고 싶어진다.
그러나 흔들어서는
눈보라가 그렇게 하듯 나무들을 아주 휘어져 있게는 못한다.
비가 온 뒤 개인 겨울 날 아침
나뭇가지에 얼음이 잔뜩 쌓여 있는 걸 본 일이 있을 것이다.
바람이 불면 흔들려 딸그락거리고
그 얼음 에나멜이 갈라지고 금이 가면서
오색 찬란하게 빛난다.
어느새 따뜻한 햇빛은 그것들을 녹여
굳어진 눈 위에 수정 비늘처럼 쏟아져 내리게 한다.
그 부서진 유리 더미를 쓸어 치운다면
당신은 하늘 속 천장이 허물어져 내렸다고 생각할는지도 모른다.
나무들은 얼음 무게에 못 이겨 말라붙은 고사리에 끝이 닿도록 휘어지지만,
부러지지는 않을 것 같다. 비록
한번 휜 채 오래 있으면
다시 꼿꼿이 서지는 못한다고 하더라도.
그리하여 세월이 지나면
머리 감은 아가씨가 햇빛에 머리를 말리려고
무릎 꿇고 엎드려 허리를 굽히고 있는
나무를 볼 수 있을 것이다.
얼음 사태가 나무를 휘게 했다는 사실로
나는 진실을 말하려고 했지만
그래도 나는 소를 데리러 나왔던 아이가
나무들을 휘어 놓은 것이라고 생각하고 싶어진다.
시골구석에 살기 때문에 야구도 못 배우고
스스로 만들어낸 장난을 할뿐이며
여름이나 겨울이나 혼자 노는 어떤 소년.
아버지가 키우는 나무들 하나씩 타고 오르며
가지가 다 휠 때까지
나무들이 모두 축 늘어질 때까지
되풀이 오르내리며 정복하는 소년.
그리하여 그는 나무에 성급히 기어오르지 않는 법을
그래서 나무를 뿌리째 뽑지 않는 법을 배웠을 것이다.
그는 언제나 나무 꼭대기로 기어오를 자세를 취하고
우리가 잔을 찰찰 넘치게 채울 때 그렇듯
조심스럽게 기어오른다.
그리고는 문을 날려, 발이 먼저 닿도록 하면서,
휙 하고 바람을 가르며 땅으로 뛰어내린다.
나도 한때는 그렇게 자작나무를 휘어잡는 소년이었다.
그래서 나는 그 시절로 돌아가고 싶어한다.
걱정이 많아지고
인생이 정말 길 없는 숲 같아서
얼굴이 거미줄에 걸려 얼얼하고 근지러울 때
그리고 작은 가지가 눈을 때려
한쪽 눈에서 눈물이 날 때면
더욱 그 시절로 돌아가고 싶어진다.
이 세상을 잠시 떠났다가
다시 와서 새 출발을 하고 싶어진다.
그렇다고 운명의 신이 고의로 오해하여
내 소망을 반만 들어주면서 나를
이 세상에 돌아오지 못하게 아주 데려가 버리지는 않겠지.
세상은 사랑하기에 알맞은 곳:
이 세상보다 더 나은 곳이 어디 있는지 나는 알지 못한다.
나는 자작나무 타듯 살아가고 싶다.
하늘을 향해, 설백(雪白)의 줄기를 타고 검은 가지에 올라
나무가 더 견디지 못할 만큼 높이 올라갔다가
가지 끝을 늘어뜨려 다시 땅위에 내려오듯 살고 싶다.
머무르지 않고 되돌아오는 것도 좋은 일이다.
자작나무 흔드는 이보다 훨씬 못하게 살 수도 있으니까.
프로스트는 자작나무의 휘어진 모습을 보고 자신의 어린 시절을 추억하고, 그리고 인생의 의미에 대한 사색을 이 시에서 묘사합니다. 그는 우선 사실적으로 평이한 말투로 자작나무가 휘어진 것은 겨울에 진눈깨비가 내려서 나뭇가지가 그 무게를 견디지 못해 가지가 땅을 향해 굽어진 것이라고 추측합니다. 그러나 그런 사실적인 묘사를 한 다음에 시인 프로스트는 상상력을 동원해 어린아이가 그네를 타듯, 시소를 타듯 자작나무를 타는 모습을 그려내고 싶어 합니다.
변변한 놀이기구가 없는 시골아이가 자작나무 가지 위에 올라타고 그 탄력을 이용해서 하늘 위까지 그리고 땅 가까이까지 오르내리는 모습은 순수하고 평화로운 전원의 풍경을 연상하게 합니다. 이 아이의 놀이에서 중요한 것은 하늘과 땅 사이의 균형입니다. 너무 높이 올라가게 되면 추락해서 다칠 염려가 있고, 너무 땅 가까이에만 있으면 별로 재미가 없을 것이니까 말입니다.
어른이 된 지금도 시인은 자작나무 타듯 살고 싶다고 말합니다. 걱정거리가 많고 세상 살기가 힘들어질 때, 시인은 이 세상을 잠시 떠났다가 다시 돌아오기를 소망합니다. 그러나 그 소망이 반만 이루어져서 떠났다가 아주 돌아오지 못할까 두려워합니다. 세상을 잠시 떠나는 황홀함, 그 뒤에 세상살이를 다시 시작하는 새로움. 그 둘 간의 조화로운 균형과 짜릿한 긴장감이 프로스트가 이 세상이 사랑하기에 좋은 곳이며, 이 보다 더 좋은 곳을 알지 못한다고 하는 이유가 아닐까.