Fire and Ice

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 favore fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

This poem may seem short but I think it has lots of connotations in it. I figured out after reading few times that Robert Frost wasn't saying fire and ice just literally, but they each have meanings. By fire I think he meant to say something hot like passion or desire and by ice he meant to say something cold like apathy. He says at the beginning that either desire or apathy would end the world and I think he didn’t mean that literally either. Frost says that he had tasted desire before and agrees with people that said that desire would destroy the world. By that, I thought that he had had some bad experiences by having a strong desire for something. I quite don’t get what ‘But if it had to perish twice,’ but I agree with him that desire and apathy both have potential to destroy the world.

348

348

-by Emily Dickinson

I dreaded that first Robin, so,

But He is mastered, now,

I'm accustomed to Him grown,

He hurts a little, though --

I thought If I could only live

Till that first Shout got by --

Not all Pianos in the Woods

Had power to mangle me --

I dared not meet the Daffodils --

For fear their Yellow Gown

Would pierce me with a fashion

So foreign to my own --

I wished the Grass would hurry --

So -- when 'twas time to see --

He'd be too tall, the tallest one

Could stretch -- to look at me --

I could not bear the Bees should come,

I wished they'd stay away

In those dim countries where they go,

What word had they, for me?

They're here, though; not a creature failed --

No Blossom stayed away

In gentle deference to me --

The Queen of Calvary --

Each one salutes me, as he goes,

And I, my childish Plumes,

Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment

Of their unthinking Drums --

When I read this poem for the first time, it was so hard that I couldn't understand most of it(and I still don't), but after reading it over and over again, I could understand more about what Dickinson was trying to say. The speaker in this poem is afraid of Spring; in a more broad way of changes. She says that she does not dare to meet daffodils and that she doesn't want the bees to come near her. The speaker doesn't want any new things to happen to her and she wants to run away from it. However, she says in the sixth stanza that even though she rejected changes, they all came to her anyways disregarding of her fears. So in conclusion, I think the poem is saying that changes will come to us even though we may not welcome it.

I think the speaker of this poem is Emily Dickinson herself. I don't know about her feelings and thoughts when she was writing this, but I think that she must have been going through changes that she doesn't want to happen.