Saturday Poetry Corner: The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence Is The Flower?

"He has made everything beautiful in its time.  
(Ecclesiastes 3:11)

The Rhodora is a fragrant common springtime plant which grows in the

wetlands of New England.  This beautiful wildflower can also be found in 

the bogs and swamps of the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens in New Jersey.

In May, when the 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.

"The Rhodora On Being Asked, Whence Is The Flower?"
(1834)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
American poet