[Explanation: The strength of the flower comes through its roots from the soil. The flower (a rose, an emblem of beauty) is a metaphor for the individual personality; the soil represents society. A transformation has taken place, so that the quality of the product is different from the raw material from which it grows. Just as our appreciation of the rose stems from the use of quite different faculties from those which perceive and understand the soil, so as I contemplate Book 3, I prepare to abandon sociological insights for psychological. The roots of the rose bush are the roots of our humanity: the tap root represents the life principle, with nine laterals standing for funda-mental facets of human nature: dignity, individuality, autonomy, gregariousness, territoriality, curiosity, rationality, creativity and spirituality. The root system should be well-rounded and symmetrical; but in reality some laterals are well-developed, while others are stunted. This poem is divided into ten parts.]
Radical
‘The sensitive plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower;
It loves,even like Love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not, the beautiful!’
(from The Sensitive Plant, by Percy Bysshe Shelley)
INTRODUCTION
Our nature is a portrait of balance and proportion:
A head not too big for the shoulders, or shoulders
Too big for the head. Ugly is our portion
If gems in our nature become little boulders
Or the society gardener stints the powers
Of our roots to sustain the early rose that flowers,
Blighting our idealism, till the whole bush moulders.
The core of our being is no secret spring,