On Beauty And the 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 waver 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 whispering,
She speaks in our spirit Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quears 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 hooves 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 noon tide the toilers and the wafers 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 rippers 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's not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth But rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted It's 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's not the sap within the furrowed bark nor a wing attached to a claw But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels forever in flight People of Orphales,
Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face But you are alive and you are the veil Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror But you are eternity and you are the mirror
