Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PESSIMISTS, by EDWARD MERRILL ROOT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PESSIMISTS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What if the oak should ask
Last Line: With a red, torn rose?
Alternate Author Name(s): Root, E. Merrill
Subject(s): Pessimism


What if the oak should ask
The meaning of his task?
Why should he turn the dark
Earth into silver bark?
Why bear upon his twigs
Acorn, not plums and figs?
Why pour his life in boughs,
Not horn and eyes like cows?
Why should he gnarl his limbs
At the wind's crooked whims?

What if the rose should question
Tyrannous June's suggestion
Why drink cold rain, and eat
Mould through her buried feet?
Why fix her roots so firm
Down with the pallid worm?
Why bear her gorgeous bloom
To suffer vase-doom?
Why (slave to earthen laws)
Cherish her crimson haws
Just so a child to come
In the Millennium
May thrill his little nose
With a red, torn rose?





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