Fire And Ice

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,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Considering the title the reader may expect that in the poem there is a contrast between two dimensions: passion and reason, love and hate.

The layout shows that the compositon consists of nine lines arranged into a single stanza rhyming ABAABCBCB.

The poem opens with a general consideration of the speaking voice who reports two opposite beliefs about the end of the world. Some people claim that it will end in fire, others in ice. At first the speaker seems to side with those who foresee fire because he has already felt desire in his life. However, he suggests that if he could live again he would probably support those who predict ice because he would know what hate means and so he thinks that ice would be strong enough to destroy the earth.

Taking into consideration the structure the reader notices that the first and the second line are two parts of one sentence. The anaphora “Some say” l. 1, “some say” l. 2 has the function to emphasize the strong dualism between fire and ice. The occurence of two stressed words following one another in the first lines (“some say”) also brings to surface the contrast. At line 3 the speaking voice comes to the forefront with the use of the personal pronoun “ I “ to assert his own opinion on the topic discussed. At the same time, in the speaker's personal experience, the two elements acquire a metaphorical meaning: fire is linked to passion and burning desire, whereas ice may represent selfishness or coldness in human relationships.  In addition, the frequent use of enjembments (“desire/I hold” ll. 3-4, “hate/to say” ll. 6-7, “ice/ is also” ll.7-8) creates a movement which may recall the swirling spiral of a cataclysm. The alliteration of the 'f' sound in 'favor fire' (l. 4) hightlights the impulsive nature of passion which overwhelms us at first. However, the conjuction 'but' introduces a change in the speaker's point of view: coldness and selfishness may be even worse than passion.

To conclude, the reader may suppose that the poem shows how two different impulses can have the same distructive consequeces.