YOU do not seem to realise that beauty is a liability rather than an asset—that in view of the fact that spirit creates form we are justified in supposing that you must have brains. For you, a symbol of the unit, stiff and sharp, conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority and liking for everything self-dependent, anything an ambitious civilisation might produce: for you, unaided to attempt through sheer reserve, to confute presumptions resulting from observation, is idle. You cannot make us think you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you are brilliant, it is not because your petals are the without-which-nothing of pre-eminence. You would, minus thorns, look like a what-is-this, a mere peculiarity. They are not proof against a worm, the elements, or mildew but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliance without co-ordination? Guarding the infinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience to the remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be remembered too violently, your thorns are the best part of you. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RAIN by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES ON LENDING A PUNCH BOWL by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 8 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE CHILD ALONE: 6. BLOCK CITY by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE OLD BURYING-GROUND by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER A WESTERN WASTE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE HAYMAKERS' SONG, FR. KING RENE'S HONEYMOON by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |