Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 3-4
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
- Are we feeling better now? Good, because the speaker is trying to tell us that decay is a necessary part of nature's cycles. So even if America's empire is rotting away, it's all totally normal, nothing to worry too much about. Reassuring, we know.
- The metaphor the speaker uses of a flower fading to make fruit which then rots to make some more dirt is pretty much as natural as it gets—can't have either without the other, just like you can't have spring without the dormancy of winter.
- According to the speaker, everything goes back to Mother Earth ("home to the mother") just to be regenerated in another form all over again. Here's some more groovy flower power to help explain.
- Did you notice how the speaker isn't talking just about America here? He's keeping his focus on an explanation that's not only nature-based, but also a bit more hopeful and applicable to all circumstances, at least compared to what we saw in the first stanza. That's why he's "sadly smiling" because he knows he needs to accept these kinds of cycles without getting too worked up over it. There's a purpose for every time, in other words.
- "Sadly smiling" has some alliteration there too that makes the speaker's sadness sound a bit more peaceful than miserable. Mix some sadness in with a smile and voila, you get a sad smile that doesn't look so bad. Check out "Sound Check" for more on this poem's sounds.
- Oh and we can't forget about all of those F's in "flower," "fades," and "fruit." Using so much alliteration here makes those natural cycles appear all the more unified, as one word leads us into the next with similar sounds. "Sound Check" it, Shmoopers.