So much I gaze on Beauty
My Vision is Alive with it²
Beauty is a Witch against whose
Charms Faith melteth into Blood³
Beauty neither Obscures Truth nor
Reveals it – it neither Leads toward
Justice nor away from it: it Radiates⁴
Draw from Shapeless Moments such
Patterns as you can, Cleave henceforth
To Beauty – expect no more from man⁵
Too Much Beauty is nothing but too much Sun⁶
Such then is Beauty Surrendered against all Hope⁷
Who Walks with Beauty has no need of Fear: the
Sun and Moon and Stars keep Pace with them⁸
Those that have it in them to be Beautiful
Flower wherever they are, although they
Are, like Everything else, Ephemeral⁹
Estranged from Beauty – none
Can be – for Beauty is Infinity¹⁰
¹ Dante Alighieri tr. original, Purgatorio
² C.P. Cavafy tr. Rae Dalven, For Ammonis, So Much I Gazed
³ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
⁴ Maggie Nelson, Bluets 164
⁵ Edna St. Vincent Millay, My Spirit, Sore from Marching
⁶ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Walter’s Wife
⁷ Bell Hooks, Appalachian Elegy 2
⁸ David Morton, Who Walks with Beauty
⁹ Alan Dugan, Argument to Love as a Person
¹⁰ Emily Dickinson, Estranged from Beauty