"Don't open that door!" "Look out behind you!" "I want my mommy!" Look, we're working on it. We're the ones you hear yelling at the screen. We at Shmoop are really lame dates at horror movies.Stooped to pull harder- When, sprung out of the earth She's not just a passive character here: she did something. And this first, simple action ("She pulled") tells us that Persephone made a choice.We've been waiting for something to happen. Second, by withholding the verb in that first sentence and then ending that second line with a specific, strong action, we pay extra attention.She shows us the exact picture, like a photograph, that Persephone saw.
First, the lack of a verb forces us to pay attention to that one pretty flower, rather than start running away with the story. It's a fragment! No verb! Someone alert the grammar police! (We've met those guys-you do not want to mess with the grammar Five-O.) Actually, though, Dove has a couple of reasons she doesn't want to give us a verb yet. English teachers everywhere gnash their teeth at that first sentence. Clearly, it's important to know that this girl is off on her own, trying to find something that will make her special, make her unique, make her unlike everyone else. The speaker tells us that this flower is "one unlike all the others!" The exclamation mark really seals the deal. The second line makes all of those little subtle hints very obvious. Heavens, no.) And then there's that delicious little juxtaposition that ends the first line: "the ordinary beautiful." That might as well be a Taylor Swift song. Do you know any teenage girls who also spend a little too much mirror time? (No, not you, of course. We mean, the first word of the poem is "one." As in the only one. The first two lines do a lot to tell us about the mindset of a teenage girl. Quick, all future florists step to the front of the class: What is a narcissus? That's right! A narcissus is a daffodil, a flower that grows out of a bulb buried deep in the ground. We realize on the second line that this isn't really pretty boy, after all. Dove cleverly breaks the first line before completing her thought (that's called enjambment, folks). 
The title tunes us up to expect mythological figures and then the second word is a reference to a classic character. Narcissus was the mythical pretty boy who got stuck forever looking at his own reflection. This poem is about the myth of Persephone. One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful flowers, one unlike all the others! She pulled,
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