Pound : In a station of the metro

 

We already know that Pound writes “In station of the Metro” based on his experience in the Paris metro where he sees a beautiful face, then another and then another. 

The first line of the poem “the apparition of these faces in the crowd” is totally connected with his experience. He is just describing how these faces emerged from the background. Here I ask to myself; are there only some faces standing out of the multitude of people because of their exceptional beauty, or are all the faces of equal beauty?

In the second line “petals on a wet, black bough”, black bough is just a synonym for the darkness of an underground metro station, whereas petals on a wet symbolizes the beautiful faces that Pound saw growing out of the darkness, just like petals that emerge from branches.

 It seems that each petal of a flower might be slightly individual, nevertheless, overall, they are all the same. This makes me think that there is equivalence to each beautiful face. 
Therefore, all humans are equally beautiful and equally important to creating one complete flower or crowd.

 The image of the faces  materializing out of the crowded darkness gives the poem a mysterious effect, however, the image of colored petals on a black branch is a hopeful one. 
All things considered, we have two conflicting ideas together that create a rounded effect in which the poem can cover two contrasting sentiments in only two lines, which is amazing.