606. The Rhodora by Ralph Waldo Emerson
b'Ralph Waldo Emerson read by Classic Poetry Aloud\\n\\nwww.classicpoetryaloud.com\\nTwitter: @classicpoetry\\nFacebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------------\\n\\nThe Rhodora \\nby Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 \\u2013 1882)\\n\\nOn Being Asked Whence Is the Flower\\n\\nIn May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,\\nI found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,\\nSpreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,\\nTo please the desert and the sluggish brook.\\nThe purple petals, fallen in the pool,\\nMade the black water with their beauty gay;\\nHere might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,\\nAnd court the flower that cheapens his array.\\nRhodora! if the sages ask thee why\\nThis charm is wasted on the earth and sky,\\nTell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,\\nThen Beauty is its own excuse for being:\\nWhy thou wert there, O rival of the rose!\\nI never thought to ask, I never knew:\\nBut, in my simple ignorance, suppose\\nThe self-same Power that brought me there brought you.\\n\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.'