Whence is the flower

Today is the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorite 19th century Poets. He started his careers as a Unitarian Minister, but when his wife died in 1831, he questioned his faith and began to write and give lectures which he is famous for today.

While Emerson's subject matter varied widely, it is his writings on nature that I find the most meaningful. The Rhodora (below) is my favorite example of how Emerson uses romanticism to explore equality in nature as well as the reason things happen in our lives. The idea that everything in this world has an equally important place in the world is a comforting thought and has permeated my writing over the past five years.

The Rhodora
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.