In the poem “The Farewell”, Edward Field uses a sad and tolerant tone to teach the reader a lesson that you shouldn’t trust people too easily and that trust can be easily broken and end in tragedy. The author uses the ice in the poem in the literal sense and the figurative sense by use of metaphor and symbolism. The speaker says that “they say the ice will hold” but just like his trust with them the ice broke just as easily. The ice is being compared to the fragility of trust and is also a symbol for how easily it can be broken. The speaker says that “the ice meets over my head again with a click”. The ice just like trust might have come back together but it is still always going to be broken. Edward Field teaches the reader using metaphors and symbolism that trust can be easily broken and that you shouldn’t trust people to easily like the average person does.