Birches

“Birches” uses the figure of a young boy to explore nostalgia and how adulthood alters a child’s perception and experience of the world. Frost begins by describing a solitary figure, a rural child “whose only play was what he found himself, / Summer or winter, and could play alone” (Lines 26-27). The child is happy in his solitude and develops a relationship with the birches that is respectful, careful, and joyful. As the speaker relays the boy’s story, he yearns to return to this experience of innocence and joy, saying, “So was I once myself a swinger of birches. / And so I dream of going back to be” (Lines 41-42). Aging has changed the speaker’s outlook on life, which he now sees as “a pathless wood” (Line 44), confusing and without direction, that brings pain and weeping. As he observes the birches, and meditates of the boy, he wants to return to the feeling of childhood, which he interprets as the ability to “get away from earth awhile” (Line 48), and experience the dynamism he had in his own, birch-swinging days.