So much we gaze on Beauty
That our vision is alive with it!²
Too much Beauty is nought
But too much Sun.³
Such then is Beauty
Surrendered against all hope—⁴
Who walks with Beauty has no need of fear:
The Sun and Moon and Stars keep pace with them!⁵
Beauty neither obscures truth nor reveals it—
It neither leads toward justice nor away from it:
It Radiates!⁶
Those that have it in them to be Beautiful
Flower wherever they are, although they are,
Like everything else, Ephemeral …⁷
We draw from shapeless moments
Such Patterns as we can,
And Cleave henceforth to Beauty—
Expect no more from man!⁸
From fairest creatures we desire Increase,
That thereby beauty’s Rose might never die …⁹
Estranged from Beauty—none can be—
For Beauty is Infinity!¹⁰
¹ Dante Alighieri tr. original, Purgatorio
² C.P. Cavafy tr. Rae Dalven, For Ammonis, So Much I Gazed
³ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Walter’s Wife
⁴ Bell Hooks, Appalachian Elegy 2
⁵ David Morton, Who Walks with Beauty
⁶ Maggie Nelson, Bluets
⁷ Alan Dugan, Argument to Love as a Person
⁸ Edna St. Vincent Millay, My Spirit, Sore from Marching
⁹ William Shakespeare, Sonnet I
¹⁰ Emily Dickinson, Estranged from Beauty