“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.

“The Road Not Taken”  By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

I had never read this poem before now. Now that I have, I realize that many, like myself, have misunderstood it. Most, probably by not reading but simply seeing the title. This poem is not about taking the road less traveled. It is, however, as the title and the poem states, a tale of man who comes to a fork in the road and must choose one way or the other. Both are equally traveled and equally covered with leaves. The speaker chooses one and tells himself that one day he take the other, thought he knows that it is unlikely he ever will have the chance to do so. He states that someday in the future when he is telling this story to others he will say he took the road less traveled, which will add a slight twist and a little drama to this somewhat everyday story.

Forks in roads and paths in woods have been symbols and metaphors of life and lifeline since ancient times. They hold crises and decisions. The fork in this poem is identical on either size, symbolizing the nexus of fate and free will. Because each side is the same, we are free to choose but we don’t know what we are choosing between. Therefore our decision is determine by the culmination choice and chance. I personally love this poem because it does not advise. It doesn’t say “take the left” “take the right” “take the road less traveled”. Like life, the man must decide on his own and the reader never knows which he chooses.

  The title also lead me to think that in the future the man may even regret the decision he made. Not because of the outcome but because of what he may have loss by not taking the other road. This is one of those poems that every person should read and I believe every person will have a different view of it. Many views may be similar but each person has to relate the poem to their own lives and so each view will be, should be, slightly different.