Robert Frost's Birches is, on its surface, a richly descriptive poem: it paints in loving detail the appearance of birch trees bent and swinging in a New England landscape. Yet Frost's description is never idle; it constantly opens outward into reflection. It is fair to comment on the poem as descriptive while noting how the description carries meaning.
Vivid physical description of the birches. The poem opens with a memorable picture of birch trees bent "to left and right" against the straighter darker trees. Frost describes with precision how the branches arch, and how the trees, once bent, never quite straighten again. The reader can see the scene clearly.
Description of the ice-storm. The finest descriptive passage explains that the birches are bent by ice. Frost pictures the loaded branches after a winter storm: they "click upon themselves" as the breeze rises, and in the sunlight they "crack and craze their enamel," shedding "crystal shells" of ice that shatter and "avalanche" on the snow-crust. This is exact, sensory nature description, appealing to sight and sound.
Description of the swinging boy. Against the scientific truth of the ice, Frost sets the picture he prefers to imagine: a farm boy who swings the birches down. He describes the boy climbing carefully "to the top branches" and then flinging himself outward, riding the tree down to the ground, "kicking his way" through the air. The description of the boy's play is precise and affectionate.
From description to reflection. The descriptive detail is the ground for the poem's meaning. Frost uses the image of climbing and swinging as a metaphor for withdrawing briefly from the hardships of life ("when I'm weary of considerations") and then returning, for he would like to go "toward heaven" by climbing a birch but be "set down" again, since "Earth's the right place for love." The descriptive surface thus deepens into meditation on escape, return and balance.
Conclusion. Birches succeeds strikingly as a descriptive poem, its exact images of bent trees, cracking ice and a swinging boy bringing a whole landscape alive. But Frost's description is purposeful: through it he reflects on human longing to escape the burdens of life while remaining rooted to the earth. The poem is descriptive and, at once, quietly philosophical.
