Fire And Ice is a poem by Robert Frost.

Just considering the title I expect the poem to be about something hot - love, passion, life, heat, desire - and something cold – destruction, hate, death, pain, regret. The title also suggests the idea of the end of the world or the end of a relationship. The conjunction “and” connects two opposite words, because “fire” is linked to something hot and “ice” to something cold. The oxymoron creates a dichotomy, a contrast, an opposition. The poet juxtaposes them because they both have a strong power on everybody’s life.

The composition is arranged into three stanzas by the use of punctuation. The first two consist of two lines, thus they are couplets and the last one consist of five lines.

The first two lines have got similar patterns: they have the same syntactical and anaphoric structure (“Some say”). They  expresses two different opinions that are connected by “some say”. They refer to the way the world would end. Some think the world would end in fire, while others in ice. 

In the second couplet he gives his viewpoint: he agrees with those who think the world will end in fire, because he has experienced of desire.

The two couplets are linked together because they both express opinions.

The last stanza is about the ice and the poet uses some words that have in themselves the noun ice, that are twice and suffice. The ice is connected to destruction and it is generated from the hate the speaking voice talks about in the sixth line. Also the word “perish” is connected to ice because, when you die, your body is likes ice.

In the first two lines there is an anaphor, indeed there is the repetition of “Some say” which has also an alliterative sound.

The last five lines are all run-on-line and they must all be read in one breath without breaks. The poet uses a lot of enjambments because he wants to express a sense of confusion, anxiety and loss.

The rhyme scheme is ABAABCBDB.

The use of words valorises the poem. Most of them are apposite and simple words (world, fire, ice, desire, hate and destruction), but there are also very complex words like perish and suffice. As a result there are mixed linguistic registers.

The word “great” refers to moral and ethical meanings and it is an ironical use of the word.

In general the text shows different and coexisting elements of human’s life, such as hate and love, desire and abandonment.