"The Rhodora" is an 1847 poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

. It is a response to the question "whence is the flower". The poem is about the rhodora

Rhodora

Rhodora is a section of subgenus Pentanthera in the genus Rhododendron. It comprises two species, both deciduous shrubs native to eastern North America:*Rhododendron canadense*Rhododendron vaseyi...

, a common flowering shrub, and the beauty of this shrub in its natural setting.

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The Rhodora

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals fallen in the pool

Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask; I never knew;

But in my simple ignorance suppose

The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

External links

• The Rhodora Full text