- 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.
