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Petals by Amy Lowell

Analysis

The poet speaks about her dreams and her floating off and to the future. The petals represent events in our lives as the scent represents memories.

Everyone dreams about the past and about their own future. It's something that we all face and will continue to face for the rest of time. However, whatever happened we have to forget. We can't be "freightened of hope" like Lowell. We have to be hopeful no matter what and do the best we can to improve ourselves and our lives. No matter how many "petals" fall, we must stand up straight and take life head on.

Poem

Petals
By 

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Published in "A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass" .
Next: On Carpaccio's Picture: The Dream of St. Ursula