Poem: The Rhodora

The Rhodora

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.

“The Rhodora” by Ralph Waldo Emerson ponders why God creates something beautiful if no one ever sees it. By the end of the poem, Emerson seems to discover his answer to one of life’s most important questions through the rhodora. Why are we here on Earth?

The rhodora is a deciduous plant that is native to northeastern United States that bears pink flowers. The poem begins with a subheading of “On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?” With the subheading, Emerson establishes a question of where does the flower comes from or why is the flower here on Earth. When Emerson encounters the rhodora, it is spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook. Emerson states ‘To please the desert and the sluggish brook”. Due to the time of year, the rest of nature is not in its prime, so it appears the rhodora is blooming in a desert.  With this line, Emerson is establishing that the rhodora had no reason to bloom. The rhodora only exists for the sole purpose of pleasing the other elements of nature such as the slow moving brook.

Emerson uses the rhyme scheme of AABBCDCDEEFFGHGH. Examples of alliteration include repetitive use of the “p” sound in line 5 with ‘purple petals” and the repetitive use of the “r” sound in phrases such as “rival of the rose”.  Assonance occurs in phrasing such as “plume” and “cool” with the long “U” sound, as well as the repetition of the short “I” sound in line 15 “in simple ignorance”.

These final last lines of the poem contain its thematic meaning. The God who created both human and nature, from whence the flower came from, compels us to the flower, the very same power. The essence, the core of being, is what Emerson proposes we all strive for. Why should we ask the details of the flower, when we should be concerns with where the flower came from? Who gave the flower its essence? Seeking the essence and core meaning is what drives life. It is what brings us to wake up every morning, what brings us to have the urge to “find ourselves” day in and out.

Poem: Brahma

BRAHMA

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

"Brahma" is miraculous in its blend of Eastern and Western thought. Emerson claimed that those baffled by the poem might be aided if they replaced the Brahma of the title (Brahman is the Hindu god of creation) with Jehova, indicating a belief that Eastern and Western religions could in large part be reconciled. Emerson is able to use clever, yet complex paradoxical logic in order to present his philosophy in poetic terms. Throughout the poem, Emerson alludes to Hindu mythology. The knowledge of which he gained through reading the Bhagavad-Gita and other Hindu scriptures. In Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem, "Brahma", the overall theme is the divine relationship and continuity of life and the unity of the universe.

The poem has been described as one that explores the 'continuity of life and the unity of the universe', the 'I' in the poem being God who is in all things, thus explaining why all seeming contradictions are as one. The overall theme of Brahma is the divine relationship and continuity of life and the unity of the universe. To begin with, this is explained through the concept of re-incarnation, which is expressed in the first stanza. He says that if a killer thinks he has killed another or if the dead think that they are truly well, they do not fully realize his power; for he, Brahma, can create, destroy and re-create. In the end the "red-slayer", or the Hindu God Krishna, and his victim are merged in the unity of Brahma. When Brahma re-creates or "turns again," it is known commonly as the concept of reincarnation. Thus, the continuity of life is expressed through Brahma's eyes. Second, Emerson clarifies it the second stanza in which he states that the universe lives in harmony ad not opposing forces such as good and evil. Lastly, Emerson calls upon the reader to abandon praying for material thoughts or asking him, Brahma, for asylum as join him in the ultimate unity of the universe. Thus, the request that he makes is for the reader to join him in the ultimate unity of the universe, also known as the Hindu philosophy of Mukti.

In writing "Brahma," Emerson boldly crosses new bounds by assuming the perspective of a God and by cleverly mixing Eastern and Western thought.

Poem: Blight

BLIGHT

Give me truths;
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition.  If I knew
Only the herbs and simples  of the wood,
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony ,
Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,
Milkweeds and murky brakes,  quaint pipes and sundew,
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods
Draw untold juices from the common earth,
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell
Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply
By sweet affinities to human flesh,
Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,--
O, that were much,and I could be a part
Of the round day, related to the sun
And planted world, and full executor
Of their imperfect functions.
But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes.
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the Bowen,
And human fortunes in astronomy,
And an omnipotence in chemistry,
Preferring things to names, for these were men,
Were unitarians of the united world,
And, wheretoever their clear eye-beams fell,
They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes
Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars,
And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,
And strangers to the plant and to the mine.
The injured elements say, 'Not in us;'
And night and day, ocean and continent,
Fire, plant and mineral say, 'Not in us;'
And haughtily return us stare for stare.
For we invade them impiously for gain;
We devastate them unreligiously,
And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.
Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us
Only what to our griping toil is due;
But the sweet affluence of love and song,
The rich results of the divine consents
Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover,
The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;
And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves
And pirates of the universe, shut out
Daily to a more thin and outward rind,
Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes,
The stunted trees look sick, the summer short,
Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay,
And nothing thrives to reach its natural term;
And life, shorn of its venerable length,
Even at its greatest space is a defeat,
And dies in anger that it was a dupe;
And, in its highest noon and wantonness,
Is early frugal, like a beggar's child;
Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims
And prizer of ambition, checks its hand,
Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped,
Chilled with a miserly comparison
Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.

The poem ‘Blight’ basically describes the spiritual, social, and environmental impacts of deforestation. The poem begins with a description of the forest where Emerson lists various plants and asserts their medicinal importance: “Their fragrance and their chemistry apply/ By sweet affinities to human flesh, / Driving the foe and establishing the friend.”

This poem is especially current with our situation of global warming now. The reader can feel Emerson's anger at the rape of the beauty and sacredness of every element of our earth be it animal, mineral, or vegetal in man's pursuit of profit and ego worship. And because, according to him, everything on this earth is responsive and intelligent, we reap the consequences of our thoughtlessness. 

The poem then turns to the scholars and engineers of that period, people enamored by the industrial revolution, which showed no regard for biodiversity and proceeded to clear-cut large swaths of land. Even in the 1800′s, people were losing their respect for the environment and were only interested in development and the extraction of resources that would bring the fastest and greatest financial return or as Emerson writes, “For we invade them impiously for gain.” The poem concludes with a description of the physical and spiritual degradation that humans experience as a result of their selfish exploitation of the planet: “And nothing thrives to reach its natural term,/ And life, shorn of its venerable length,/ Even at its greatest space, is a defeat,/ And dies in anger that it was a dupe.” We are duped into believing that we need all this stuff that our imagined comforts and financial security is worth the exploitation of resources, but in the end we will die with nothing and realize we bought into the lie. Essentially, we are creating our own suffering.

His time..

“Be not the slave of your own past.

Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep

and swim far, so you shall come back

with self respect, with new power, with

an advanced experience that will explain

and overlook the odd”

-    Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson: A major American poet, who worked first as a Unitarian priest. In his hometown, Concord, Emerson founded a literary circle called New England Transcendentalism, a hodgepodge of fashionable thoughts, in which participated among others Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Thoreau. During his travels in England he met Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle, with whom he maintained a lifelong correspondence from the 1830s and whose opinions of the importance of great historical figures influenced his own writings. Later Emerson became involved in the antislavery movement and worked for women's rights.

The sun set, but set not his hope: 
Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
Deeper and older seemed his eye; 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time. 
He spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the Age of Gold again: 
His action won such reverence sweet 
As hid all measure of the feat. 
('Character,' Essays: Second Series, 1844)

                                                                                                

Emerson's first and only settlement was at the important Second Unitarian Church of Boston, where he became sole pastor in 1830. Three years later he had a crisis of faith, finding that he "was not interested" in the rite of Communion. Her once remarked, that if his teachers had been aware of his true thoughts, they would not have allowed him to become a minister. Eventually Emerson's controversial views caused his resignation. However, he never ceased to be both teacher and preacher, although without the support of any concrete idea of God.

Like Wordsworth, Emerson drew inspiration from Nature. His first book, Nature, a collection of essays, came out when he was 33 and summoned up his ideas. Emerson emphasized individualism and rejected traditional authority. He invited to "enjoy an original relation to the universe," and emphasized "the infinitude of the private man." All creation is one, he believed – people should try to live a simple life in harmony with nature and with others. "... the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God," he wrote in Nature, the manifesto of American transcendentalism. His lectures 'The American Scholar' (1837), and 'Address at Divinity College' (1838) challenged the Harvard intelligentsia and warned about the formalism of the clergy of his time. He was ostracized by Harvard for many years, but his message attracted young disciples, who joined the informal Transcendental Club, organized in 1836 by the Unitarian clergyman F.H. Hedge.

Born in 1803, Ralph Waldo Emerson is enjoying one of his periodic revivals. His patrician Yankee features and sideburns, his essays with titles like "Self-Reliance" and "Compensation" can make Emerson seem forbidding. But those essays--many of them comfortably short, though often as dense as poetry--reveal that Emerson was warmly human, and his struggles with faith completely recognizable to us moderns. His skepticism, his spirituality anchored in experience and his insistence on exploring every religious tradition are the hallmarks of the modern seeker.

It's not Length of Life, but Depth of Life.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)

Waldo Emerson is truly the center of the American transcendental movement, setting out most of its ideas and values in a little book, Nature, published in 1836, that represented at least ten years of intense study in philosophy, religion, and literature, and in his First Series of essays.

Born on May 3, 1803, in Boston, Waldo, as he preferred to be called, received a classical education at Boston Latin School and at Harvard College. Following in his father's footsteps, Emerson was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1829, but he experienced a religious crisis after the death from tuberculosis of his first wife, the beautiful and romantic Ellen Tucker, to whom he had been married only eighteen months.

The Emerson house was a busy one, with friends like Elizabeth Hoar, Margaret Fuller, and Henry Thoreau staying for months to help out and talk. He, Bronson Alcott, and George Ripley decided to begin a magazine, The Dial, with Margaret Fuller editing, in 1840; Emerson would edit the final two years, ending in 1844, and he wrote essays for many issues. His Essays (first series) were published in 1841.Meanwhile, tragedy struck with the sudden death of his five-year old son Waldo in 1842, soon after the death of John Thoreau from lockjaw, and a darker, tougher strain appears in Emerson's writing, beginning with his memorializing poem, "Threnody." But Emerson pulled himself together to give a series of lectures in New York and in 1844 he had a new volume of essays prepared.

Emerson believed in individualism, non-conformity, and the need for harmony between man and nature. He was a proponent of abolition, and spoke out about the cruel treatment of Native Americans. Influenced by the Eastern philosophy of unity and a divine whole, emphasizing God Immanent, to be found in everyone and everything, Emerson sowed the seeds of the American Transcendentalist movement. He realized the importance of the spiritual inner self over the material external self through studying Kantianism, Confucianism, Neo-Platonism, Romanticism, and dialectical metaphysics and reading the works of Saint Augustine, Sir Francis Bacon, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Shakespeare among many others. During his lifetime and since Emerson has had a profound influence on some of the 19th and 20th century's most prominent figures in the arts, religion, education, and politics.

Ralph had become quite famous, a major figure in the American literary landscape, a celebrity which brought both adulations and satire. He had been a profound inspiration for many writers, especially Henry Thoreau and Walt Whitman. He continued his speeches against slavery, but never with the fire of Theodore Parker. In 1857 he wrote an essay on "Memory" but ironically, in his later years, his own memory would falter, especially after his beloved house burned in 1872. He died quietly of pneumonia in 1882.