Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/73

Rh Fled like the flood's foam.

The lawyer, and the laws,

And the kingdom,

Clean swept herefrom.

They called me theirs,

Who so controlled me;

Yet every one

Wished to stay, and is gone,

How am I theirs,

If they cannot hold me,

But I hold them?'

THE RHODORA:

ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?

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,