Birches

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 12th grade November 2001

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Life: It is Hard to Live Have you ever seen a child fall, scrape his knee, cry, but then recover within minutes? That episode is the biggest problem that he will deal with that day, and for many days to come. Adults, on the other hand, become lost in a world of bills, mortgages, working and putting food on the table for their loved ones. How they wish so much to go back to being a child when a scraped knee was the worst of their problems. In Robert Frost's poem, "Birches", the speaker describes the adversity of living life and the lighthearted life of a child. Swinging and climbing on the birches is what transcends the speaker to another realm.

With the speaker yearning to be in another place in another time, makes the tone of poem wishful. It is not a good wishful though - the speaker is so unhappy in his life he wishes to leave it.

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 (42 - 48) His life is too much for him to handle and seeing the young boy so joyful only makes the speaker more envious. Although he would like nothing more than to succeed above it all, he does not want to be gone infinitely. He expresses that he desires to "come back to it and begin over" (49). It is as if the speaker is asking for a second chance - a chance to run away from his problems.

The...