In several of his poems, Frost presents the outer as emblem or echo or distorted mirror image of the inner. Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. Outer blatantly symbolizes inner. Fire is directly equated with desire, the kind that kindles antagonism and conflict.
Ice is equated with hate.
Fire and ice are born in the dark reaches of inner space, in the smoldering, ice-sheathed human heart. However, if the height of art is to conceal the art, then Frost is a consummate artist, because the terror in the poem is so casually understated that it slips by some readers undetected. The understatement is most evident in the fifth and last lines of the poem. This deceptive strategy of understatement leads Shapley and Pobojewski to interpret the poem as idle cosm ic speculation rather than an astute diagnosis of the chronic malfunction of the human heart. Although I was part of the audience listening to Shapley's address forty years ago, I imperfectly recall Shapley's account of his meeting with Frost.