Two such as you with such a master speed, cannot be parted nor be swept away, from one another once you are agreed, that life is only life forevermore, together wing to wing and oar to oar.
Robert FrostRead
Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A poem's true essence is revealed through its emotional journey, much like ice melting on a hot surface.
Robert Frost's quote suggests that poetry has a transient and delicate nature, akin to a piece of ice placed on a hot stove. As the ice melts, it undergoes a transformation that can be both beautiful and poignant, reflecting the way poetry reveals emotions and thoughts that evolve over time. The poem must exist independently, experiencing its own journey, just as the ice cannot control its melting process; this speaks to the inherent fragility and potential impact of verse.
Themes
PoetryArtEmotionTransienceMelting
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a creative writing workshop to discuss the nature of poetry.
More from Robert Frost
All quotes βYou have freedom when you're easy in your harness.
Robert FrostRead
God made a beauteous garden With lovely flowers strown, But one straight, narrow pathway That was not overgrown. And to this beauteous garden He brought mankind to live, And said "To you, my children, These lovely flowers I give. Prune ye my vines and fig trees, With care my flowers tend, But keep the pathway open Your home is at the end." God's Garden
Robert FrostRead
'Warm in December, cold in June, you say?' _x000D_ _x000D_ I don't suppose the water's changed at all. _x000D_ _x000D_ You and I know enough to know it's warm _x000D_ _x000D_ Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. _x000D_ _x000D_ But all the fun's in how you say a thing.
Robert FrostRead
For, dear me, why abandon a belief, Merely because it ceases to be true, Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt, It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Robert FrostRead
The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing.
Robert FrostRead
Similar quotes
A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
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O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
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The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. Paintings of Moreau are paintings of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom; Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.
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Poetry allies itself with beauty - a supreme union - but never uses it as its ultimate goal or sole nourishment.
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Capitalism and power politics have made our generation creatively sluggish, and our vital art is mired in a broad bourgeois philistinism.
Walter GropiusRead