The Rhodora

[1] A month earlier, he had visited Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and experienced a deeply spiritual communion with the natural setting there.

[2] Emerson's poem is 16 lines long, which he may have intended as a slightly longer version of a sonnet.

[1] "The Rhodora" uses a sophisticated form of purposeful symmetry combining octaves, quatrains, and heroic couplets.

[5] The rhodora is presented as a flower as beautiful as the rose, but which remains humble and does not seek broader fame.

[9] Scholar Allan Burns adds to that list other American poems focused on symbolic use of flowers, including Bryant's "The Yellow Violet" and James Russell Lowell's "To the Dandelion".