“Some Say… Some Say…”
The poem begins with other people talking.
↳ By the time he speaks, we are already inside a dispute.
📚 Chapter Learning Kit
Fire and Ice · Class 10 English · First Flight Poetry
English 3 topics 132 leveled MCQs 60 flashcards 4 games Free
Shared by a Veda teacher · Generated with Veda AI · Oct 2026
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He Holds With Fire
Then he votes — and gives a strange reason.
Not astronomy. Not scripture. From what he has tasted of desire, he holds with those who favour fire.
↳ From line three onwards the poem's authority is personal.
“But…”
Line five turns the poem on one word.
↳ Having voted, he calmly supplies the alternative anyway.
Twelve Words
The textbook asks, and then helps.
The set question: what do fire and ice stand for? And beneath it, twelve words to think with.
↳ Six that burn, six that freeze — and they sort themselves.
Fire: Appetite
What the hot six have in common.
↳ Fire is the temperature of wanting.
Ice: Refusal
And the cold six have the opposite shape.
↳ Every one of them can be done by doing nothing at all.
📖 Smart notes
What you'll study, topic by topic
1
Two Ways to End a World
People argue about how the world will finish — burnt or frozen. Frost joins the argument in nine lines, votes for fire, and then, almost as an afterthought, says that ice would do the job perfectly well too.
- The poem is by Robert Frost and runs to nine lines — a single short block, not divided into stanzas.
- It opens as a reported argument: some people say the world will end in fire, and others say it will end in ice. Frost does not invent the de…
- The speaker then takes a side, and the reason he gives is personal rather than scientific — from what he has tasted of desire, he holds with…
~25 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
2
Fire Is Desire, Ice Is Hate
The textbook prints twelve words and asks what fire and ice stand for. Six of them are hot and six are cold — and between them they name almost every way human beings have of destroying each other.
- The textbook's second question asks directly what 'fire' and 'ice' stand for, and then supplies twelve words to help: greed, avarice, cruelt…
- Six of them are hot feelings and belong to fire: greed, avarice, cruelty, lust, conflict and fury — the emotions that consume, that want, th…
- Six are cold and belong to ice: intolerance, rigidity, insensitivity, coldness, indifference and hatred — the emotions that harden, that shu…
~26 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
3
The Rhyme That Ties the Two Together
The textbook asks for the rhyme scheme and then asks a much better question: how does it help bring out the contrasting ideas? The answer is that the rhymes weave fire and ice together instead of keeping them apart.
- The rhyme scheme is aba abc bcb. Written as one run it is a-b-a-a-b-c-b-c-b, and the nine rhyme words in order are fire, ice, desire, fire,…
- There are only three rhyme sounds in the whole poem, and the third does not arrive until line six — so for five lines the poem has just two…
- The a-rhyme does the poem's central work: fire, desire, fire. The sound itself ties the element to the feeling, so the identification is mad…
~27 min · full explanation, examples & memory tricks in the app
❓ Leveled MCQ practice
Try the smart MCQs from this kit
132 questions laddered from warm-up to topper-level, each with an explanation. A taste:
This poem is printed at the end of the first chapter of First Flight, beside another poem by the same writer. Who wrote it?
Beginner
A Carl Sandburg
B W. B. Yeats
C Robert Frost
D Adrienne Rich
Show answer & explanation
Robert Frost
He also wrote 'Dust of Snow' in the same chapter.
How is the poem laid out on the page?
Intermediate
A As two stanzas of four and five lines
B As three stanzas of three lines each
C As nine separate one-line stanzas
D As a single block of nine lines with no stanza break
Show answer & explanation
As a single block of nine lines with no stanza break
There is nowhere in it to pause.
How does the poem open?
Intermediate
A With the poet's own prediction about the future
B With a description of a burning city
C With a question addressed to the reader
D With a report of what other people say about the world's ending
Show answer & explanation
With a report of what other people say about the world's ending
Frost walks into an argument already going on.
After reporting that some people expect the world to end in fire and others expect ice, the speaker declares his own position. Which side does he take?
Beginner
A Those who favour fire
B Those who favour ice
C Neither — he refuses to choose
D Both equally, from the start
Show answer & explanation
Those who favour fire
Ice is offered only afterwards, as a second option.
🃏 Flashcards
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Word Match
True False
Fill Blank
Word Scramble
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