Many are cold, but few are frozen

Looking at my blog dashboard, I saw the beginning of the title of a recent post, "Many are . . .," and my mind completed it as "Many are cold, but few or frozen," a humorous alteration, independently invented many times, of "Many are called, but few are chosen." This was reinforced when, minutes later, I read an allusion to the latter expression in Elias: An Epic of the Ages:

The called are not the chosen past mischance;

The sanctified to glorified advance,

And stewardship becomes inheritance.

I had a vague memory of having made the "many are cold" joke before on this blog, so I searched it for the word frozen. I didn't find any instances of the joke, but I did find this, in the original "Reading with my eyes shut" post (September 2025):

Upon waking, I couldn't remember any dream imagery, just two couplets. The first was a new version of the Jinbad couplet from "With?" In spoken form, which is how I received it, it is ambiguous and could be written in either of the following ways:

Jinbad the Jailer holds the keys.

He locks up some; and others, frees.

Jinbad the Jailer holds the keys.

He locks up some, and others freeze.

In the joke, frozen stands in for chosen, and being chosen is a good thing. Here, freeze is a second meaning of frees, and being freed rather than locked up is a good thing. The frees/freeze connection reminds me that there is a Disney movie called Frozen, of which I know nothing except that it is known for one of the songs on its soundtrack: "Let It Go" -- i.e., set it free.

Early on in Elias, the poet apostrophizes one of the mountains of Utah, addressing it as

Lone, looming hermit of the hills, apart

From where thy banded mates in union dwell!

The word hermit of course caught my attention. The poet continues his speech to the mountain:

Thrice wondrous things, once thine to wisely scan,

Fast as thy frozen snow-crown, still in store,

Hadst thou the melting gift -- of sovereign man

The sunlike glory -- mightest thou restore,

Till learning's tide o'erwhelmed the shining shore . . .

This "hermit" wears a "frozen snow-crown" which represents all the knowledge it holds -- knowledge which would become an overwhelming flood of learning if only the mountain had "the melting gift," glossed in a footnote as "The power of speech or of song." Some 55 years after Elias, Rodgers and Hammerstein would aver that the hills do indeed have that power:

The hills are alive

With the sound of music

With songs they have sung

For a thousand years