The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast-
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child – so high – you are,
And all this is folly to the world.
Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Ezra Pound better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.
The poet is speaking of the tree in the Garden of Eden, the tree of Life. How life wins.You are violets with wind above them.
A child – so high – you are, Such opposites,”You are violets with the wind above them”, but ” A child-so high-you are,”. The poem speaks of goddess, of queen, and of a girl.
im looking 4wad t see the meaning f this poem i thnk i love 8 hhhehehe i hope smeday i wl understand the meaning o this poem if you kno just visit my email add im w8ting…
It was a good poem. It reminds me of growing up and feeling/living life.
I want to thaks Elena from Spain. I have just read the myth Of Dafne and Apolo. At a first sigth the poem seems to be simple, but it isnt.
This poem is based on the mith of Apollo and Daphne. Pound is telling in this poem the part in which Daphne is turning into a laurel tree to scape from Apollo. The first part is told by Daphne in first person, telling her process of transformation. The second part is told by Apollo who is seeing the process. If you want to understand better this poem, you should read the myth of Daphne and Apollo.
i think this poem is about any girl, and the author uses the tree as a way of expressing its comunion with the girl, and the world failing to the understand the love which ties him to the girl, thinks its all folly or somethig like that, besides, its only my interpretation, and good poems are good because they have so many cool interpretations, diversity generates cultural richness
I totally fail to see how this poem is about a girl…
isnt it more like a tree???
this sounds really perverted like sex or masturbation….i like it
Methinks the girl in question is Ezra’s daughter. When she enters his hands, she has been delivered to him (birthed). She becomes a part of him. “So high you are” implies that Ezra reveres the girl. The folly is about how he thinks no one in the world could understand the relationship betweeen him and his girl.
No, ezra is not a woman’s name. Do you know any women named Ezra? Just because it ends with an ‘a’ does not mean it’s necessarily a woman.
i like this poem, but i’m not quite sure why, it speaks to my heart but i’m not sure what it’s saying
I really don’t think this poem is meant to parallel traditional mythology. Pound typically shied away from this; often he utilized later models, such as Dante’s Inferno.
This reminds me of this on time in a cabin…this Tree came on to me and i had gooey Sap all over my body but my face most of all.
thispoem is bad >;-P
hhhhhmmmm i guess i take the poem at face value. A girl feels so deeply. she is what she experiences the tree, the flower, the whatever and the world cannot understand
amazing poem…speaks to my senses
I think that his poems are smart and if you can make money off two sentences then koo koo!!!! I wish I could do it………..jealous people!!!!
Isn’t Ezra a womans Name???
“all this is folly to the world”
that is the center of the poem to me and what i want to understand.
Pound describes his feelings about the subject of his poem, the little girl, by comparing her to a tree. He takes her in his hands literally (that is how i read it) and it suggests to me that he is taking care of her. But the image of the sap ascending his arms becomes more ominous. Then the idea of the tree (child) penetrating him, becomes stranger and more ominous still such that branches grow from his arms. Is he saying that he feels so responsible for her or is so moved by her that she has become a part of him? By the end of the poem
she is everything: the tree. the moss. the violets with wind blowing above them. These are beautiful images but the last line, again, turns foreboding: “and all this is folly to the world”. The power and beauty of a girl is what makes the world fall and sin. Pound’s point of view could be viewed as ambiguous. He loves and hates the little girl.
i don’t get it
a touching moving poem ( i also had been thinking that pound was a woman)