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Chapter 25 - Beauty |
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a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty." |
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| 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? |
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| 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." |
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| 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." |
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| 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." |
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| 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 inflamed and a soul enchanted. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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