Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death. A summary of “Birches” in Robert Frost's Frost’s Early Poems. “Birches” is an enduringly popular lyric by one of the United States’ most celebrated poets. The visual image of the bent birches causes the narrator to speculate about how the tree became that way. We get the sense that the speaker is an older man who is experienced and wistful. When Frost or his speaker dreams of going back to that stage of life, swinging on birches accrues symbolic meaning. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. 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. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans. Movement three begins at line 41. He prefers his idea of the boy swinging in the birch trees thus arching its branches. And so I dream of going back to be. Line 13: The extended metaphor reaches its conclusion with the shattering of the crystal dome that was once said to separate earth from heaven. The birches bent “across the lines of straighter darker trees” subtly introduce the theme of imagination & will opposing darker realities. Learn how to do your own analysis, and then read my own interpretation of "Birches" by Robert Frost. This gives the poem a free flowing tone, enhanced with the use of enjambment —  a style where verses break into the next line without punctuation. Birches by Robert Frost. Figurative The speaker means to say that the journey to escape his troubles is just as important as where he ends up and the effect it has on him. Birches is a single stanza poem of 59 lines. The poem is chiefly written in blank verse—  an unrhymed iambic pentameter. Birches by Robert Frost: Summary and Analysis This blank-verse lyric Birches was published in 'Mountain Interval' in 1916. It is a blank verse poem because it is unrhymed and in iambic pentameter. He feels this way because he wants to get away from his troubles on his own terms, but still return to them along with the rest of Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Frost’s Early Poems and what it means. Critical Appreciation. Robert Frost (1874 –1963) was an American poet having his roots in New England. The poem conveys a lofty and noble message in the line ‘earth is the right place for love’. Written in blank ... Notice the sibilance (repetition of s sounds) in the third line of the poem: