Have you ever read a piece of literature and thought for sure it meant one thing, but after reading it once more, or perhaps even a few times more, suddenly you no longer have the same outlook on what you just encountered? For many, interpreting poetry can seem like mind-boggling experience.
One day unexpectedly, when I was presented with this assignment, I stumbled upon the poem The Seed Shop, which was written by Muriel Stuart in the early nineteen hundreds. .
"HERE in a quiet and dusty room they lie, .
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand, .
Forlorn as ashes, shriveled, scentless, dry-- .
Meadows and gardens running through my hand. .
Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring, .
Sleepers to stir beneath June's magic kiss, .
Though birds pass over, unremembering, .
And no bee seek here roses that were his. .
In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams, .
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust .
That will drink deeply of a century's streams, .
These lilies shall make summer on my dust. .
Here in their safe and simple house of death, .
Sealed in their shells a million roses leap; .
Here I can blow a garden with my breath, .
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.".
Through the course of this paper, the main focus will be exploring probable interpretations of this poem, in order to find which possible meaning is most effective. In order to properly analyze this poem, other literary works such as To Blossoms, by Robert Herrick and also, Intimations of Immortality, by William Wordsworth will be used in comparison with The Seed Shop.
Initially, when reading the poem The Seed Shop, one would assume that the poem was merely a stunning description of the potential of a handful of seeds. Upon, reading the poem a second time, one might think differently. Through the author's use of sharp imagery, the images became quite memorable, with lines stated such as "In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams," or "Sealed in their shells a million roses leap.