Flower-enamel, leaf and bark

Meaning

The exquisite enamel of spring flowers, the leaf and the bark show different manifestations of the one world spirit in vegetable bodies. Enamel here is brilliant floral adornment, not a mineral pigment added to a plant. The subtlest celestial tears make floral enamel, the less subtle make the leaf, and the grossest make the bark. Bark protects and persists against the seasons; the verse praises coordinated variety rather than demanding that every part perform the same work. This protective escorce must be distinguished from the later disparaging “bark” of superficial scholarship. The repeated word changes its evaluative role with the object and the argument.