Fire and Ice
The poem fire and ice is a composition by Robert Frost the addresses the subject of sinners in hell but their necks in ice. The poem was first published in his book Hampshire in 1923, where fire represented the emotion of desire, while ice is the emotion of hatred.
The poem introduces the reader to the idea that the world can end in two ways, either with ice or fire, through hate or desire. The poem is recited in a severe tone, but the use of iambic beat running and rhythm undermine the seriousness of the matter addressed by the writer. The long lines tend to be read quicker as compared to the shorter ones, which indicate a difference in tempo for lines 2, 8, and 9. From the first two lines, the reader is introduced to the idea that the world could end either by fire or ice, but this is based on rumor living the reader open-minded on who made the suggestion. In the third, fourth, and sixth lines, the first person puts forward his ideas to the reader in his view. The poem is generally an opinion poem in nature, and the ideas in the poem are from personal experience.
It’s known that the world will eventually come to an end, but the poem puts in the perspective that the world could either end by fire or ice. In the poem, ice describes hate, which is a reason, and fire expresses desire, which is passion. People who lived a negative life were judged as the worst sinners hence put in a lake of ice.
This is a nine stanza poem with rhyming words at the end of each line and also uses iambic dimeter and tetrameter. The rhyme scheme of the poem is: aba abc bcb making the poet have freedom of achieving musicality in this piece of poetry. The poem contains a mix of iambic dimeters and tetrameters with the short line having two stresses and four syllables while the long lines have four stresses and eight syllables.
Work Cited
Meyers, Jeffrey. Robert Frost. Books on Tape, 1997.