Logo for the Journal American Rhododendron Society

Journal American Rhododendron Society

Current Editor:
Dr. Glen Jamieson ars.editor@gmail.com

Volume 41, Number 3
Summer 1987


"The Rhodora"
Famous Rhododendron Manuscript Displayed At University Of Virginia Library
Kendon Stubbs
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

Reprinted from "Mid-Atlantic Rhododendron, News and Notes", Mid-Atlantic Chapter newsletter

        At the Middle Atlantic Chapter fall meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia, members visited the University of Virginia Library (home of the MAC rhododendron and azalea collection) and viewed an original manuscript of the most famous poem ever written about the genus Rhododendron. Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Rhodora", with its memorable line "Then Beauty is its own excuse for being," is also acknowledged to be one of the greatest American poems, memorized by generations of school children who had never seen a wild azalea. "The Rhodora" was first published in the Western Messenger in July, 1839, and later in Emerson's Poems (1847), and has since been reprinted in innumerable anthologies. The University of Virginia manuscript is a copy by Emerson pasted down on a watercolor of rhodora in bloom and probably provided by Emerson to an admirer who asked for an example of his autograph.

The Rhodora poem

        Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense) is the most northerly of native American azaleas, growing from Labrador south to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, near streams and in "damp nooks." Rhodora bears purplish pink flowers in April and May before the leaves appear.
        Emerson's poem cannot fail to echo in the hearts of laborers in the gardens of rhododendrons and azaleas. The complete text of the poem follows.

The Rhodora
In May, when seawinds 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,
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 selfsame Power that brought me there, brought you.
               Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poem from R.W. Emerson Collection (#6248-a), Barrett Library, University of Virginia Library.

Volume 41, Number 3
Summer 1987
