Analysis of The Rhodora
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 (Boston) – 1882 (Concord)
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.
Scheme | X AABBCDCDEEFFAGAG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110111010 011111101 11011001 1011010011 1101000101 0101010001 1011011101 1101111111 01010110101 11010111 1111010101 11111101110 11011101110 1111110101 1101111101 1011010001 01110111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 727 |
Words | 138 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 16 |
Lines Amount | 17 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 286 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 68 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 41 sec read
- 269 Views
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"The Rhodora" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29873/the-rhodora>.
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