In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 五月,海风刺透静寂 I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 林中忽遇紫杜鹃 Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 叶空,画满,编缀湿地 To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 荒原缓溪为之一亮 The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 紫瓣缤纷飘落 Made the black water with their beauty gay; 黑水斑驳艳丽 Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, 绯鸟或暂歇凉 And court the flower that cheapens his array. 爱花瓣令羽色黯淡 Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why 若问汝何以 This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 绝色虚掷天地 Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 请谓之:眼为视而生 Then beauty is its own excuse for being: 则美为美而在 Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! 与玫瑰竞色 I never thought to ask, I never knew: 何必问缘起 But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 吾来看汝,汝自开落 The self-same power that brought me there brought you. 缘起同一
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. His well-known essays were Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience. Emerson developed certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for man to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic; "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson's essays remain one of the linchpins of American thinking. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."(Source: Wikipedia)