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Leaves Compared With Flowers (A Further Range, 1937)

Robert Frost This is perhaps, one of the greatest poems ever written by a man who wrote many jewels. The best poetry often contains metaphors and similes, and Robert Frost was a master at using the natural world to describe the human condition. In this wonderful piece, he tells us he will be comparing leaves to flowers, but he also symbolically describes people as trees, and makes some very profound statements. In life we need to first pay attention to the foundations we lay for our children, and then as we grow we need to appreciate the function as well as the form—the inner strength and beauty as well as the public display. While youth is often preoccupied with flowers, and the bark and wood become more important to the mature, as we age, we also find our focus may shift to ferns, and at last to the moss and lichens that will be closest to us after we die. His contrasts are even more important, in my mind, than are his comparisons. Not only do we see the differences here between flow