When I first read this poem, the first thing I notice is the general idea that the speaker (in the first person) is describing the end of the world. The first thing that comes to mind is the movie “Armageddon” and the meteors burning the earth, representing fire. I can also see the planet covered in large glaciers and everything is buried under layers of ice. This especially scares me because I live here in the heat of Hawaii. I can understand the literal meaning, that the person speaking is saying that if the world were to end, they would favor fire, but ice would also do the job. These are things that I know to be true from a first reading. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Another thing I looked at was the structure of this poem. It is arranged so that there is a rhyme scheme, which I believe was intentional on the author's part. The way the poem seems to be held together by the rhymes is aesthetically pleasing. One interesting thing I saw is that the pattern of lines 6 and 8 differs from the rest of the poem. The rhyming words are "hate" and "awesome", which is an ironic association to make between something considered bad and something that is inherently good. Another thing I noticed about the rhymes is that in the first 4 lines, the word ice (2) does not rhyme with fire and desire. This was perhaps to show an initial contrast between fire and ice. Now that I have established what I know, I now ask myself some questions about what I don't know about this poem on a first reading. What is the relationship between fire, ice, desire and hatred? Why is their relationship important? What is Frost trying to say in this poem? These are the main questions I asked myself. To begin to address the first question, in line 3 the speaker says "From what I have tasted of desire" and then continues in line 4 with "I care for those who favor fire." "Here the speaker is making a connection between fire and desire. I believe he is trying to use fire as a metaphor for desire. From personal experience, I know that a desire can be all-consuming and a bit like a wild fire that rages uncontrollably and destroys everything in its path The speaker also seems to understand how destructive desire can be and makes it his first choice for the end of the world. Then the speaker speaks in the second half. of the poem there he states in line 7 how ice "is also ideal" for destruction based on their knowledge of hatred Here the speaker makes a similar connection to the one used in the first half. time, except here between ice and hatred It is worth noting that the author performs the same process with two sets of opposite things, desire and fire, and hatred and ice. is cold. When I do things that I really hate, I feel like time is frozen in time and the hands of the clock are frozen in time. Hatred is also cold in the sense that when you truly hate something, you will do anything to harm or eliminate it, regardless of the consequences. Any heart can be frozen in the iron grip of hatred. Thus, the speaker asserts that hatred can also destroy the world. I believe that fire and ice, desire and hatred were first opposed. When we think of fire, we think of heat. When we are hot, we would like to drink something cold. When we think of ice cream, we think of cold. When we are cold, we want to sit by a fire and warm up. Desire is the desire to have or to create.