How to Paint a Water Lily
To Paint a Water Lily A green level of lily leaves Roofs the pond's chamber and paves The flies' furious arena: study These, the two minds of this lady. First observe the air's dragonfly That eats meat, that bullets by Or stands in space to take aim; Others as dangerous comb the hum Under the trees. There are battle-shouts And death-cries everywhere hereabouts But inaudible, so the eyes praise To see the colours of these flies Rainbow their arcs, spark, or settle Cooling like beads of molten metal Through the spectrum. Think what worse is the pond-bed's matter of course; Prehistoric bedragoned times Crawl that darkness with Latin names, Have evolved no improvements there, Jaws for heads, the set stare, Ignorant of age as of hour— Now paint the long-necked lily-flower Which, deep in both worlds, can be still As a painting, trembling hardly at all Though the dragonfly alight, Whatever horror nudge her root.
How to Paint a Water Lily - meaning Summary
Stillness Above Hidden Violence
The poem asks the painter to see a pond as two overlapping worlds: the bright, airborne world of insects and the ancient, predatory life below the surface. Against this constant but often unseen violence, the water lily appears almost perfectly still. Its calm is not innocence or escape; it is a fragile poise rooted in the same dangerous environment that surrounds it.
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