'If eyes were made for seeing...'

This poem records a moment in May when the poet spots a rhododendron blossoming, heralding spring in all its glory and prompting some unforgettable musings on the nature and purpose of beauty

May 02, 2025

Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘The Rhodora’ (1843)

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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.

What we love about this poem…

The full title of this poem is "The Rhodora: On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower", and in its progress rejects the folly of asking what the ‘point’ of a flower’s beauty might be. Emerson’s later philosophical writings on nature, beauty, and the spirit (especially his book, Nature, (1836)) are incipient here, but there’s something more besides. The affectionate, intimate addresses between flower and bird, bloom and desert, wind and solitude, eye and sight draw us in to a sense of place that communicates in gestures and signs beyond language.

About the author

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) was an influential and innovative American writer well known for his non-fiction essays, nature writing, and poetry. You can read about his many contributions and achievements here.

To Read Alongside…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning in one of our previous newsletters is similarly arrested by an encounter with a palm tree: O my palm tree! And we—of course—must mention William (and Dorothy) Wordsworth’s iconic wanderings amongst unexpected flowers, Golden, dancing, jocund, laughing daffodils.

A search for more disquieting encounters with flowers might take you to Sylvia Plath’s ‘Tulips’ (1962) (‘too red in the first place’), or the purple hibiscus that flourish under the care of Aunty Ifoma but turn red in the violence and struggle of Papa’s garden in Chimamanda Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003).

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