playing on them. He thenbegins to tell a fable-like story that could explain their appearance. Hedescribes a young boy that lives in a rural territory, possibly a farm,that goes out to do his chores, like fetching the cows, but gets sidetracked by both the beauty of the woods and his wanting to play. Becausethe little boy is in a secluded environment, he is forced to entertainhimself. Therefore, he became accustomed to playing on his father's trees.One by one, he would conquer them all. He did this on such a frequent basisthat he took the stiffness out of them and caused them to bend. Here Frostis offering a far-fetched romantic suggestion like some of Aesop's fables.It was the boy's carefree manner of entertainment that was an excuse forthe bending of the trees. He then goes on to say that he learned manyvaluable lessons swinging on the trees. These could be both lessons dealingwith life as well as how to play on the trees properly. As all the treesbecame bent, he learned to swing from tree to tree, but jumping off beforethey touched the ground. In this paragraph, Frost explores a boy, perhapshis own, fantasies with the birch trees. He offers a more child-likeapproach to explain the appearance of the trees. The final part of the poem deals with Frost's adult views about birch treesand how he relates it to his life. He is reflecting back to a boy'sinnoncent childhood experience. Although we are not certain that the boydescribed in the poem is Frost, it is definately a possibility because hegrew up in New England,an area with many birch trees. At the end of thepoem, Frost longs to return back in time to this carefree life. Frost saysthat whenever his life becomes difficult and confusing, he wishes that hecould just swing carefreely from branch to branch as he did when he was achild. In fact, he enjoyed this era in his life so much that he is willingto be "reborn" to experience this stage of his life again. Don't worry, heis not suicidal,...
