Chapter 3, The Hired Man and Other People Summary

"Birches" is one of Frost's most quoted poems, and is the first poem presented in Untermeyer's third chapter. Frost opens with an observation of birches bent in contrast with the straight trees around them, and how he likes to think that a boy has been swinging on them in the midst of his tending the cows and doing his chores. He says that he knows it is the ice weighing them down, and describes in beautiful terms the color of the ice as it cracks and the idea that it looks like the dome of heaven has shattered and covered the ground when the ice shells come off the trees. Then, with his typical humor, he comes back to the image of the boy with a scold for Lady Truth for...