The first three lines in the poem represent the image of childhood and adulthood.
"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." Childhood is represented when the branches swing Frost thinks there is a boy swinging on them. Adulthood is represented by straighter darker trees because darker is a reference to older trees just by the nature of the color as compared to a birch tree which is white or light in color. "But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning. After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel." The ice storms symbolize the difficult times in life or the coming of age through time and weathering just like a person. The word loaded describes about the burden of being old compared to youthfulness just like the burden of the ice on the trees. Shattering and avalanching on the snow such heaps of broken glass to be swept away is a representation of the final stage in life and that is death. The shattering of the branches is like the death of a person and the sweeping away of the branches is like a funeral. You'd think the inner dome of