31 Jul Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Fire & 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 favour 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 is one of the first poems I ever read when I was younger that always stuck with me. I never really understood what it meant until I got older and developed my own insight into it. It’s rare for me to connect with poetry in general but when I do, I remember it forever. It doesn’t matter how the world will end because it will end in hate or desire, whichever drive is stronger. Either or, its the same.

The lockless door

“It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light,
I tiptoed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again.
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.

Back over the sill
I bade a ‘Come in’
To whatever the knock
At the door may have been.

So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.”

After reading Fire & Ice for the first hundred times, I decided to look more into Frost’s works.

This is definitely my second favorite poem I can relate to from Frost. It speaks of isolation which the author has developed his own life around. Due to an unknown visitor knocking on his door, he abandons his own isolation and forces himself out into the world. He learns to adapt to his new surrounding as that is the main idea that comes with age. It reminds me of that coming-of-age time that everyone eventually goes through. To force yourself out into the world and adapt to new surroundings and embrace change.  Life is a constant change or so I’ve learned in the 20 something years I have been living. I guess when I read this poem the first few times, it invited me to step outside of my own bubble and to stop isolating myself from the rest of the world.