I think you draw out roses on the stem Just by your love, because you look for them. So a drab woman, when you look at her Puts on new leaves where never any were. No matter how much winter she has seen Or how much sorrow, you will make her green. If she should stand a skeleton-tree for years You would not give her up, for all your fears, But look at her as if she rustled soft Multitudes of leaves held lightly up aloft, Until her branches were an airy flush, Color of second life, green burning bush. And if the woman flings her hair, and shakes Her thin leaves from her -- bows her head and takes The steep path down her roots, to lie as seed Under the ragged triumph of a weed, And though her shell grows crooked, cold and brown, You let her go, and do not cut her down; You let her go, content that she will come Up from the earth in hymeneal bloom; You do not cut her down -- though all her sisters wear Glittering leaves, and she is gaunt and spare. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELOISA TO ABELARD by ALEXANDER POPE DOST THOU ASK? by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS TO CHILDREN: 4. THE FAIRY REALM by WILLIAM ROSE BENET SUMMER by WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY THE CRIME OF THE AGES; 1861 by AUGUSTA COOPER BRISTOL |