Poem by Marianne Moore

Roses Only

You do not seem to realise that beauty is a liability rather than
  an asset—that in view of the fact that spirit creates form we are
             justified in supposing
    that you must have brains. For you, a symbol of the unit, stiff
  and sharp, conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority
and liking for everything self-dependent, anything an

ambitious civilisation might produce: for you, unaided to attempt
  through sheer reserve, to confute presumptions resulting from
             observation, is idle. You cannot make us
    think you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you are
  brilliant, it is not because your petals are the
             without-which-nothing of pre-eminence.
             You would look, minus
thorns—like a what-is-this, a mere

peculiarity. They are not proof against a worm, the elements, or
  mildew but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliance
             without co-ordination? Guarding the
    infinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience to
  the remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be remembered
             too violently,
your thorns are the best part of you.

1. The Fish
2. In This Age of Hard Trying Nonchalance Is Good, and
3. To William Butler Yeats on Tagore
4. Those Various Scalpels
5. Black Earth

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