[1] When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust — Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

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.

When the speaker (the poet himself) sees a row of bent birches in contrast to straight trees, he likes to think that some boy has been swinging them.

On a winter morning, freezing rain covers the branches with ice, which then cracks and falls to the snow-covered ground.

When he becomes weary of this world, and life becomes confused, he would like to go toward heaven by climbing a birch tree and then coming back again, because earth is the right place for love.

For example, when Frost describes the cracking of the ice on the branches, his selections of syllables create a visceral sense of the action taking place: "Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells / Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust — / Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away..." Originally, this poem was called "Swinging Birches", a title that perhaps provides a more accurate depiction of the subject.

In writing this poem, Frost was inspired by his childhood experience with swinging on birches, which was a popular game for children in rural areas of New England during the time.

Rich metaphoric thinking and imagery abound in the poem, where Frost presents some sharp descriptions of natural phenomena.