This can also be compared to life because many people have problems and frustration. However, they do not break under life's enduring tosses and turns. Rather people bend to the situation that is in front of them, and reposition themselves to evenly distribute the weight. Frost again adds beautiful imagery while comparing the bent branches "trailing their leaves on the ground" to "girls on hands and knees throwing their hair before them to dry in the sun" (18-19). These passages help to connect the natural and more permanent structure of the birches to life. By comparing them to living beings to show that life flows through all things. .
Frost then suggests that he would rather imagine a little boy causing the bending of the branches by swinging and playing on them. Frost continues to connect the flow of life from human to tree. He begins to tell a story within the poem. It is a story of a little boy living in a rural territory. The boy could be on a farm, going out to do his chores, like fetching the cows, but he does not want to because of both the beauty of the woods and his wanting to play. The little boy is in a secluded environment, when he is forced to entertain himself. He has become accustomed to playing on his father's trees, one by one he would conquer them all. He has been a frequent swinger of the birches and has taken the stiffness out of them and caused the branches to bend. Frost goes on to say, "He learned all there was to learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away" (32-33). The little boy knows exactly how far to bend the branches without breaking them. Just as there is a breaking point for all people, it is a delicate balance. Frost uses the image of filling a cup to the brim "and even above the brim" (38) to illustrate to the reader just how close the boy is to breaking the branches. Then in the next section, when he envisions a young boy playing on them, the image of summer comes to mind.