“Fire and Ice” By Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, 5
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

 

So this defiantly is not the longest poem but man does it pack a punch. I originally wasn’t going to write about this because it was so short but it kept popping into my head, especially with all the end of the world talk lately.

I have never really been real big on poetry. I enjoy it but I don’t go home after school a read it for fun. When I read The Road Not Taken and I realized how much I loved that poem, I looked up more of Frost’s poems. I read the Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and After Apple-Picking and Home Burial and although I liked them all, my mind kept being drawn back to Fire and Ice. The title itself invokes so much imagery.

I was taken away by the form of this poem. It seems so simple at first but at the same time is complex and clearly thought out. Each line ends with either a –ire, -ice, or –ate rhyme and contains either four or eight syllables. The lines are written in the seeming natural iambic, but this is not strictly followed through all of the lines. A strong enjambment in line seven is placed there by Frost to enforce a desired effect. (Which will be explained laterJ )

I simply love the say that Frost eludes the truth by putting forth an aphorism and leaving the question unanswered and the trust once again remains ambiguous. I think most of this poem’s effect comes from the contrast between the simple clipped accuracy of the vocabulary and the vague significance of the subject.

However, I have to say, the greatest asset to this poem, its greatest triumph is its form. Throughout its entirety the language remains simple, but the overwhelming, rising anticlimax of the final two lines is lost. These final lines draw their soft-kill power from the form: the rhymes, the juxtaposition of their short length and their hard-hitting punch. The final blow is the enjambment in line seven, which builds the necessary tension needed for the perfect letdown. Frost seamlessly pulls off an offhanded comment about the end of the world, which is one thing, but he accomplishes this feat masterfully by making it poetry.