S9E1: "The Rhodora" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Aug 29, 2022

In this ninth season, we are going to read six poems about the four seasons of the year. English verse especially is abundant in celebrations, odes, and meditative poems about the divisions of the year and the visible changes in nature that attend them. Over the next several weeks, we will take a look at some fine examples of seasonal poetry. Today's selection is "The Rhodora" by Ralph Waldo Emerson; poem begins at timestamp 5:07.

The Rhodora

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

On being asked, whence is the flower.

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.