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.
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| Flowers are beautiful for the sake of beauty |
This poem brings a bit of prose to my mind:
ReplyDelete"'... What a lovely thing a rose is! ... There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,' said [Holmes], leaning with his back against the shutters. 'It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, and not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope for from the flowers.'" —Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, "The Naval Treaty"
Thanks for sharing, Julie!
Wow, I love that! Thanks for sharing that, Tony!!
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