“FIRE and ICE” …by Robert Frost, (1874 -1963 )
"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 I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice is also great... and would suffice.”
Although this powerful poem was written in 1920 I feel that his dire predictions are coming closer with each passing year. The greed and lust for power and superiority that we are experiencing in today’s world is what I feel when I read these lines. Desire left unchecked becomes fire and can consume us quickly. Hate, on the other hand, is a much slower killer. It turns us into unfeeling human beings with hearts of ice.
Robert Frosts poem is warning us … telling us that we’d better learn to live with one another and to share our lives and our resources or we are doomed to pay the consequences.
War...famine...fire or ice ? It matters little...they all suffice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire,
But, if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice is also great... and would suffice.”
Although this powerful poem was written in 1920 I feel that his dire predictions are coming closer with each passing year. The greed and lust for power and superiority that we are experiencing in today’s world is what I feel when I read these lines. Desire left unchecked becomes fire and can consume us quickly. Hate, on the other hand, is a much slower killer. It turns us into unfeeling human beings with hearts of ice.
Robert Frosts poem is warning us … telling us that we’d better learn to live with one another and to share our lives and our resources or we are doomed to pay the consequences.
War...famine...fire or ice ? It matters little...they all suffice.
posted by Goldendaze-Ginnie at 3:00 PM
6 Comments:
Here's hoping that we get past a certain main bringer of doom this year.
They do indeed. Hate get us nowhere. We can disagree without hate for each other. It’s hard to remember sometimes when our values are so different.
His words do bring a bit of a chill today. Hope is there but getting harder to hold on to each day.
Little did I know when I studied this poem in school....what a harbinger it would be...and of whom. I fear we are doomed.
I remember in times such as this one that my parents, who had been children during the Depression years, married just after WWII. My father had been at Bikini Atoll when bigger and better (or worse, in my eyes) atomic bombs were tested. The whole world had just learned what had happened in Europe. Yet their young faces are full of joy and hope in their engagement photo, and they had the courage to bring more children into the world. I go to films made about 1968, and remember how it felt as an 18-year-old to feel as if the whole country were coming apart. I was full of hope then, too. I hope I can hold onto some smidgen of that hope now, too. Meanwhile, I'm researching which countries best support education, the arts, and other aspects of their citizens' well being.
A coincidence is that this week I also posted a Robert Frost poem in a blog post, but the one selected was far more optimistic than thus one. Still Frost’s words cannot be ignored in the current climate of world affairs.
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