The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart
The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart - meaning Summary
Ideal Image Versus the World
The speaker describes an inward, idealized image of a beloved—a rose blossoming in his heart—that makes the ordinary world seem ugly and disfigured. Everyday sights and sounds become offenses against that inner vision, provoking a desire to remake the external world into a matching, perfect setting. The poem presents longing as creative and transformative: love’s inner beauty both condemns reality and motivates the speaker to reshape it around his dream.
Read Complete AnalysesAll things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
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