Despite our efforts to accumulate wealth and power, make genuine friendships, and generally live the grand life we want, Frost confronts the inevitability of death and questions the fundamental questions about the way we live our lives through allusions and irony. He begins the poem talking about a woman he describes as a witch, who was one the beauty Abishad, which is a reference to a beautiful maiden brought to warm King David. Despite once being a Hollywood star, being at the top of the world, she now washes steps with a pail and rag. This demonstrates the downfall of those that are great, how unexpected and inevitable it is. After talking about one example of how one has fallen from grace, the speaker turns the situation to the reader saying how “you” might doubt the likelihood of this happening and “you” should make up “your” mind. I wondered who Frost’s audience may be when writing this. He seems critical about the way humans may want to live materialistically, because it will all be lost in the end. He ironically says if you are predestined to die anyway, why not die earlier to avoid the pain and suffering? In the next line, he then suggests that we can’t choose if we die, but we can decide the “state” in which we die, which implies that we still have some power in how we choose to life our life, and the meaning of it all. He further uses irony to make his point in the last stanza when he says it’s better to go down with purchased friendships, rather than genuine ones or none at all, to avoid getting hurt. Frost uses caesura in only one instance, the last line: “Than none at all. Provide, provide!” which creates an even greater emphasis on the title and his overall message. The inevitability of death is all the more reason we must provide ourselves with a life that is meaningful even in the face of death, and that choice is ours to make.