page: 59
The Despot
- THE garden mould was damp and chill,
- Winter had had his brutal will
- Since over all the year’s content
- His devastating legions went.
- Then Spring’s bright banners came: there woke
- Millions of little growing folk
- Who thrilled to know the winter done,
- Gave thanks, and strove towards the sun.
- Not so the elect; reserved, and slow
- To trust a stranger‐sun and grow,
- They hesitated, cowered and hid
- Waiting to see what others did.
- Yet even they, a little, grew,
- Put out prim leaves to day and dew,
- And lifted level formal heads
- In their appointed garden beds.
- The gardener came: he coldly loved
- The flowers that lived as he approved,
- That duly, decorously grew
- As he, the despot, meant them to.
- He saw the wildlings flower more brave
- And bright than any cultured slave;
- Yet, since he had not set them there,
- He hated them for being fair.
- So he uprooted, one by one
- The free things that had loved the sun,
- The happy, eager, fruitful seeds
- That had not know that they were weeds.
