WHITE ROSE
This small poem is based
around the metrical foot known as a choriamb. That is one stressed
syllable followed by two unstressed then one more stressed ( / - - /
), as in "over the hills" or blossoms like dawn.
In some lines there is an extra short syllable at the beginning or
end- a white-shining rose.
The poem uses the image of
the white rose both as its own reality and as a symbol.
WHITE ROSE
Light-petalled, fine-scented,
a white-shining rose,
coming forth from
a serration of leaves
and thorn-sharp hard stem,
blossoms like dawn.
Tell me that beauty
is but in the eye;
tell me the blind truth,
tell me that lie.
For still the rose flowers
as white as new light
through sight-giving sky:
flower in a flowering
of shining that's other,
of shining that's finer
than censor eyes see.
Gaze in the silence,
listen with seeing-
forever the rose
embowers heart's being.
