To Die Is To Become A Kneaded Clod

 

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

-- Claudio, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act 3, Scene 1

 

 

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Is "To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice" the source for Robert Frost's "Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice"?

Go Not Into The Way Of The Gentiles

 

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

For Destruction Ice Would Suffice, As It Has In The Past

The maximum extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, or Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), occurred approximately 18,000 years ago (Figure 2). During peak glacial conditions, the ice sheet was about 2 km thick over Eastern Ontario and as much as 3 km thick to the north over what is now Hudson Bay. At this time, in the east, ice extended almost as far south as present-day New York City, and throughout northern Pennsylvania (Gilbert 1994). The eastern part of the ice margin was constrained by the Appalachian plateau (extending across several of the present-day eastern States), whereas its southward extent in the west was greater: the ice sheet had by about 20 ka BP reached south-central Illinois (Hansel and Johnson 1992).

For more, see here.

What's the Weather Forecast for the End of the World this Saturday?

Fire, or ice? Desire, or hate?

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 it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great,

And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost, 1920

Or perhaps just spring-like?

Critics point out that this isn't the first time Mr [Harold] Camping has predicted the second coming. On 6 September 1994, hundreds of his listeners gathered at an auditorium in Alameda looking forward to Christ's return.


"At that time there was a lot of the Bible I had not really researched very carefully," he said last week. "But now, we've had the chance to do just an enormous amount of additional study and God has given us outstanding proofs that it really is going to happen."

ON "NECESSITY"

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923.