And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."
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.
From The Prophet -- Kahlil Gibran
