The Mysterious Bending of Trees

This poem is set in the countryside, much like where Frost grew up, so it is especially significant in providing the reader with a private picture into the poet's childhood and how he matured. The boy lived too far from town to play sports with anyone, so he would have had to play by himself, making his own fun.

Frost does not seem to like this actual, colder version of the "Truth. " When he is tired of life's tribulations he looks back o and yearns for the days when he would also play among the trees and enjoy himself. " He would much rather the trees have reached their present bent over state because of the play of a young boy living on a farm. Frost seems to almost want to return to his youth, but asks that fate not take his request seriously, as deep down he would prefer to stay where he is in life. He would climb to the top of his father's birch trees and would overpower then one after another by bending them over with his weight and then jumping off before they would break. The birch trees have become bent over because of ice that has formed on the branches and leaves, which have, over a period of several years caused the trees to bend over. Frost describes how after rain has fallen on a winter's day, ice forms on the branches, pulling them down with the weight of it. As the sun rises and warms the air, a breeze picks up which causes the ice to fall off the boughs and gather under the trees as if part of heavens dome had fallen to earth. Eventually, the boy had vanquished the row of trees and they lined up, bent over, a testament to the boys loneliness growing up. In this poem Frost makes use of his "fooling" to provide the reader with a descriptive picture of New England life which is also more than it seems, being a metaphor for his childhood life.