“The Rhodora” Introduction

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“The Rhodora” Summary

“The Rhodora” Themes

• 

  The Value of Beauty for Beauty's Sake

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• 

  The Divinity of Nature

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Rhodora”

• Before Line 1, Line 1

  On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?
  In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 2-4

  
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
  
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
  
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  
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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  
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;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-14

  Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
  
I never thought to ask; I never knew;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 15-16

  
But in my simple ignorance suppose
  
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

  

  

  

  

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“The Rhodora” Symbols

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  The Rhodora

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“The Rhodora” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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“The Rhodora” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Whence
• Rhodora
• Desert
• Gay
• Red-bird
• Plumes
• Array
• Sages
• Why thou wert there
• Self-same power

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Rhodora”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The Rhodora” Speaker

“The Rhodora” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The Rhodora”

More “The Rhodora” Resources

• External Resources

  • Transcendentalism — Learn more about the philosophical and artistic movement Emerson led. 

  • Emerson's Life and Work — Read a short biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson at Poets.org.

  • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a recording of the poem.

  • See the Rhodora — Learn more about, and see some photographs of, the flowering shrub that inspired this poem.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Concord Hymn