Hymn to Beauty
THERE is a tyrannous lord and taskmaster
Whom men call Beauty. To be born his slave
Is to be sleepless and a wanderer
Always by day and night, and not to have
The promise of much quiet in the grave.
Whom men call Beauty. To be born his slave
Is to be sleepless and a wanderer
Always by day and night, and not to have
The promise of much quiet in the grave.
The colors of the world are in a plot
To snatch my spirit from me through the eyes;
They dance before me in a weedy knot
Of woodland broideries.
They lean to catch me from the woven skies,
Woo me in light, and half
Tempt with the sea’s immeasurable laugh.
Beauty is too much with me: I would live
A free man, not a fugitive,
Be for an interval
The hourglass of the hours of sun and shower,
And for one hour
Feel with the drowsy oxen in the stall
Nothing at all.
To snatch my spirit from me through the eyes;
They dance before me in a weedy knot
Of woodland broideries.
They lean to catch me from the woven skies,
Woo me in light, and half
Tempt with the sea’s immeasurable laugh.
Beauty is too much with me: I would live
A free man, not a fugitive,
Be for an interval
The hourglass of the hours of sun and shower,
And for one hour
Feel with the drowsy oxen in the stall
Nothing at all.
Only, it may not be;
For the avenging Beauty follows me,
And whips me from my sloth
And goads me on to some new adoration.
I cannot walk through any city street
Where labor hardly elbows by starvation,
But I must meet
The inhuman Beauty both
In subtly wasted cheeks and in the spilth
Of the enriching gutter’s plague-green filth.
For the avenging Beauty follows me,
And whips me from my sloth
And goads me on to some new adoration.
I cannot walk through any city street
Where labor hardly elbows by starvation,
But I must meet
The inhuman Beauty both
In subtly wasted cheeks and in the spilth
Of the enriching gutter’s plague-green filth.
Beauty is poured
Out of the vats of darkness; Beauty runs
Through leakages of suns,
And scatters in the splinters of the seas.
This naked wall is high enough to hoard
Legions of beauty in its crevices,
Enough for the immortal soul to endure;
And the immortal sky is not more pure,
Nor God
More empty of defect, than this brown clod.
Out of the vats of darkness; Beauty runs
Through leakages of suns,
And scatters in the splinters of the seas.
This naked wall is high enough to hoard
Legions of beauty in its crevices,
Enough for the immortal soul to endure;
And the immortal sky is not more pure,
Nor God
More empty of defect, than this brown clod.
O infinite
And endless spirit of the world’s disguise,
Spirit of lies,
Beauty, the very light
Wherein we see, the sight
We see by, and the thing we seem to see,
Either give me
Humility to be indeed content
With that which thou hast lent,
And grace to take it simply as my right,
Or power not less divine
Than thine,
That I may make a world and call it mine.
And endless spirit of the world’s disguise,
Spirit of lies,
Beauty, the very light
Wherein we see, the sight
We see by, and the thing we seem to see,
Either give me
Humility to be indeed content
With that which thou hast lent,
And grace to take it simply as my right,
Or power not less divine
Than thine,
That I may make a world and call it mine.