THEY distorted and twisted my life, My manners, my belief in what was right and wrong. They said I must be shaped and moulded In mind, and body, and manners, According to the law that Confucius had made for women. Until I was beautiful in mind and body. And they took the tree that I loved, The young tree that I called mine, And bent its branches and twisted them, And tied them down with cord. That too must be beautiful, they said, According to the law that worthy ancestors had made for trees. It must be right, I thought; Ancestors, many grandfathers back, had made the law. I only hated, and was silent. I smiled and did as I was told. I was a woman. Then one night the tree, in growing, Burst the cords that had bound its top-most branch. The gardener saw it in the morning. "I must bind it with stronger cords," he said. The tree was only a tree; it could not move or kill; So the gardener bound it again. And it grew with twisted branches, distorted, as the gardener willed. And men called it beautiful. But I had seen the beauty of that free branch Against the morning sky, It gave me strength and courage. Now I am a free branch from a tree of ancient lineage, One whose name is not mentioned in her father's household. "She has defied the law that Confucius made for women," they say. But I have grown free, as the Gods intended trees to grow—and women. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: MINERVA JONES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS CAMPUS SONNET: RETURN - 1917 by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET JASPER by DONALD (GRADY) DAVIDSON O DREAMS, O DESTINATIONS by CECIL DAY LEWIS HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 2 by EZRA POUND TO A DEAD MAN by CARL SANDBURG PLAINT OF THE DISGUSTED BRITON IN THE STATES by GEORGE SANTAYANA |