The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart
All 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.
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.
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