Missing my daughter poem by Stephen spender

Missing my daughter poem by Stephen_Spender

             Missing my daughter 

             MISSING MY DAUGHTEH

 THIS Wall-paper has lines that rise 

Upright like bars, and overhead,

 The ceiling's patterned with red roses. 

On the wall opposite the bed 

The staring looking-glass encloses

 Six roses in its white of eyes.

 Here at my desk, with note-book open Missing my daughter, makes those bars Draw their lines upward through my mind. This blank page stares at me like glass Where stared-at roses wish to pass 

Through petalling of my pen.

An hour ago, there came an image 

Of a beast that pressed its muzzle 

Between bars. Next, through tick and tock Of the reiterating clock 

A second glared with the white dazzle 

Of deserts. The door, in a green mirage, 

Opened. In my daughter came. 

Her eyes were wide as those she has, 

The round gaze of her childhood was 

White as the distance in the glass 

Or on a white page, a white poem. 

The roses raced around her name.