A poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.

And he answered:

Where shall you seek beauty, and shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver¹ of your speech?

The aggrieved² and injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”

And the passionate³ say, “Nay⁴, beauty is a thing of might and dread⁵.

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 hoofs⁶, 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 wayfarers⁷ 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 hill.”

And in the summer heat the reapers⁸ 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 spoke⁹ not of her but of needs unsatisfied,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy¹⁰.

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth¹¹.

But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted¹².

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 furrowed¹³ 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 eternity¹⁴ gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.