When I read this poem for the first time, the first thing I notice is the general idea that whoever speaks (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 all buried under sheets of ice. This is especially scary for me since I live here in hot Hawaii. I can understand the literal meaning, that the speaker is saying that if the world were to end he would prefer fire, but ice will do too. These are things I know to be true after a first reading. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Another thing I observed was the structure of this poem. It is arranged so that there is a rhyme scheme, which I believe was intentional by the author. The way the poem seems held together by rhyme is aesthetically pleasing. One interesting thing I noticed is that the pattern of lines 6 and 8 differs from the rest of the poem. The words that rhyme are "hate" and "great", which is an ironic association to make between something considered bad and something that is by definition good. Another thing I noticed about the rhyme is that in the first 4 lines the word ice (2) does not rhyme with fire and desire. This may have been 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 from a first reading. How do fire, ice, desire and hate relate? Why is their relationship important? What is Frost trying to say in this poem? These are the main questions I asked myself. To begin addressing the first question, in line 3, the speaker says “From what I have tasted of desire” and then continues in line 4 with “I agree with those who are for fire.” "Here the speaker makes 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 much like a wild fire that rages out of control 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 he talks in the second half of the poem. There he states in line 7 how ice “is also great " for destruction based on their knowledge of hatred. Here the speaker makes a similar connection to the one used in the first half, except here between ice and hatred. It should be noted that the author is carrying out the same process with two series of opposite things, desire and fire, hate and ice. I can also understand how cold hate is. When I do things I really hate, it feels like time has passed and the hands of the clock are frozen in time. Hate it is also cold, in the sense that when you truly hate something, you will do anything to cause harm or eliminate it, regardless of the consequences. Any heart can be frozen in the iron grip of hatred. Then, the speaker states that hatred can also destroy the world. I believe that fire and ice, as well as desire and hate, were initially considered opposites. When you think of fire, you think of heat. When you are hot, you would like to drink something cool. When you think of ice you think of cold. When they are cold they want to sit by the fire and warm up. Desire is wanting to have or create something while hate is wanting to destroy it. I answered my first question about how fire, ice, hate, and desire are associated. I can start to see that my answer to the second question (what is the deeper message.