On Beauty

And a poet said, Speak to us of

Beauty.

And he answered:

Where shall you seek beauty, and how

shall you find her unless she herself be

your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except

she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say,

“Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her own

glory she walks among us.”

And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is

a thing of might and dread.

Like the tempest she shakes the earth

beneath us and the sky above us.”

The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is

of soft whisperings. She speaks in our

spirit.

Her voice yields to our

silences like a faint light that quivers

in fear of the shadow.”

But the restless say, “We have heard her

shouting among the mountains,

And with her cries came the sound of

hoofs, and the beating of wings and the

roaring of lions.”

At night the watchmen of the city say,

“Beauty shall rise with the dawn from

the east.”

And at noontide the toilers and the

wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning

over the earth from the windows of the

sunset.”

In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall

come with the spring leaping upon the

hills.”

And in the summer heat the reapers

say, “We have seen her dancing with the

autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of

snow in her hair.”

All these things have you said of beauty,

Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of

needs unsatisfied,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty

hand stretched forth,

But rather a heart enflamed and a soul

enchanted.

It is not the image you would see nor

the song you would hear,

But rather an image you see though you

close your eyes and a song you hear

though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed

bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden for ever in bloom

and a flock of angels for ever in

flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when

life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the

mirror.