Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

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. 

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay 

As 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. 

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. 

But I was going to say when Truth broke in 

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm 

I should prefer to have some boy bend them 

As he went out and in to fetch the cows— 

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 

Whose only play was what he found himself, 

Summer or winter, and could play alone. 

One by one he subdued his father's trees 

By riding them down over and over again 

Until he took the stiffness out of them, 

And not one but hung limp, not one was left 

For him to conquer. He learned all there was 

To learn about not launching out too soon 

And so not carrying the tree away 

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 

To the top branches, climbing carefully 

With the same pains you use to fill a cup 

Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. 

And so I dream of going back to be. 

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. 

I'd like to get away from earth awhile 

And then come back to it and begin over. 

May no fate willfully misunderstand me 

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 

I don't know where it's likely to go better. 

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 

But dipped its top and set me down again. 

That would be good both going and coming back. 

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 

Angelou, Maya. "Alone." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 02 May 2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.

"Maya Angelou." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 04 Apr. 2017. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.

"Robert Frost." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 17 May 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2017. 

"Birches Historical Context." BookRags. BookRags, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017.

Ingram, Janaye. "Column: The 400-year Struggle for Black Equality Doesn't End with #blacklivesmatter." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017.

Symbolism- "There are some millionaires With money they can’t use" (Angelou, stanza 3). The author is using money as a symbol for being alone and unhappy. The reader can infer this because the money they can't use is the money they cannot use to buy happiness. 

Imagery- "Storm clouds are gathering The wind is gonna blow" (Angelou, stanza 5). The author uses words like "stormy clouds" and "wind" to describe the setting to the reader. The clouds gathering can also symbolize the doom of humanity because people feel they can be alone even though they cannot. 

Alliteration-  "Alone, all alone" (Angelou, stanza 2). Alliteration is shown in the repetition of the constant "a" sound. 

Rhyme- "With money they can’t use Their wives run round like banshees Their children sing the blues"(Angelou, stanza 3). The author uses an a b rhyme scheme by rhyming words after skipping lines- like "use" and "blues". 

Point of View- "I came up with one thing And I don’t believe I’m wrong" (Angelou, stanza 1). The point of view is shown in this quote when the author states "I" and "I'm"- this shows the poem is written in the author's point of view. 

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 

But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back" (Frost, line 38). The metaphor would be the poet leaving earth and then coming back again, all by swinging a birch tree. 

Symbolism- "I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay" (Frost, line 3). The boy the author is referring to is a symbol of youth. The author also uses the tree the boy is swinging on as a symbol of life and death. 

Alliteration- "Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells" (Frost, line 10). This quote shows examples of alliteration by the repetition of the constant "s" or "sh" sound.

Simile- "Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair" (Frost, line 18). This is a smilie because the author compare the leaves to girls' hair by using the word "like". He compares the two because they have the same dragging/ hanging effect. 

Personification- "But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm" (Frost, line 21). Personification is shown here when the author refers to "Truth" as a "her". The word truth is also giving human characteristics because it is capitalized, as if it was a name. 

Point of View- "When I see birches bend to left and right 

Across the lines of straighter darker trees" (Frost, line 1). The point of view is shown in this quote when the author states "I"- this shows that the poem is in the author's point of view.