A Thing Of Beauty ~ <\/p>\n Beauty Xxv<\/strong> And a poet said, ‘Speak to us of Beauty.’ <\/p>\n Rondel Of Merciless Beauty<\/strong> ~ <\/p>\n Before The Throne Of Beauty Xxvi<\/strong> ~ <\/p>\n Briar Rose<\/strong> ~ <\/p>\n Beauty<\/strong> ~ A Thing Of Beauty by John Keats ~ A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1341,1390],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-8472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beautiful-love-poems","category-love","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1lovepoems.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby John Keats<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nA thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
\nIts loveliness increases; it will never
\nPass into nothingness; but still will keep
\nA bower quiet for us, and a sleep
\nFull of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
\nTherefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
\nA flowery band to bind us to the earth,
\nSpite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
\nOf noble natures, of the gloomy days,
\nOf all the unhealthy and o’er-darkn’d ways
\nMade for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
\nSome shape of beauty moves away the pall
\nFrom our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
\nTrees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
\nFor simple sheep; and such are daffodils
\nWith the green world they live in; and clear rills
\nThat for themselves a cooling covert make
\n‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
\nRich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
\nAnd such too is the grandeur of the dooms
\nWe have imagined for the mighty dead;
\nAn endless fountain of immortal drink,
\nPouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.<\/p>\n
\nby Khalil Gibran
\n~<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nWhere shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
\nAnd how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
\nThe aggrieved and the injured say, ‘Beauty is kind and gentle.
\nLike a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.’
\nAnd the passionate say, ‘Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
\nLike the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.’
\nThe tired and the weary say, ‘beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
\nHer voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.’
\nBut the restless say, ‘We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
\nAnd with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.’
\nAt night the watchmen of the city say, ‘Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.’
\nAnd at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, ‘we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.’
\nIn winter say the snow-bound, ‘She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.’
\nAnd 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.’
\nAll these things have you said of beauty.
\nYet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
\nAnd beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
\nIt is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
\nBut rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
\nIt is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
\nBut rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
\nIt is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
\nBut rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
\nPeople of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
\nBut you are life and you are the veil.
\nBeauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
\nBut you are eternity and you are the mirror.<\/p>\n
\nby Geoffrey Chaucer<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nYour two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
\nTheir beauty shakes me who was once serene;
\nStraight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.
\nOnly your word will heal the injury
\nTo my hurt heart, while yet the wound is clean –
\nYour two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
\nTheir beauty shakes me who was once serene.
\nUpon my word, I tell you faithfully
\nThrough life and after death you are my queen;
\nFor with my death the whole truth shall be seen.
\nYour two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
\nTheir beauty shakes me who was once serene;
\nStraight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.<\/p>\n
\nby Khalil Gibran<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nOne heavy day I ran away from the grim face of society and the dizzying clamor of the city and directed my weary step to the spacious alley. I pursued the beckoning course of the rivulet and the musical sounds of the birds until I reached a lonely spot where the flowing branches of the trees prevented the sun from the touching the earth.
\nI stood there, and it was entertaining to my soul – my thirsty soul who had seen naught but the mirage of life instead of its sweetness.
\nI was engrossed deeply in thought and my spirits were sailing the firmament when a hour, wearing a sprig of grapevine that covered part of her naked body, and a wreath of poppies about her golden hair, suddenly appeared to me. As she she realized my astonishment, she greeted me saying, ‘Fear me not; I am the Nymph of the Jungle.’
\n‘How can beauty like yours be committed to live in this place? Please tell me who your are, and whence you come? ‘ I asked. She sat gracefully on the green grass and responded, ‘I am the symbol of nature! I am the ever virgin your forefathers worshipped, and to my honor they erected shrines and temples at Baalbek and Jbeil.’ And I dared say, ‘But those temples and shrines were laid waste and the bones of my adoring ancestors became a part of the earth; nothing was left to commemorate their goddess save a pitiful few and the forgotten pages in the book of history.’
\nShe replied, ‘Some goddesses live in the lives of their worshippers and die in their deaths, while some live an eternal and infinite life. My life is sustained by the world of beauty which you will see where ever you rest your eyes, and this beauty is nature itself; it is the beginning of the shepherds joy among the hills, and a villagers happiness in the fields, and the pleasure of the awe filled tribes between the mountains and the plains. This Beauty promotes the wise into the throne the truth.’
\nThen I said, ‘Beauty is a terrible power! ‘ And she retorted, ‘Human beings fear all things, even yourselves. You fear heaven, the source of spiritual peace; you fear nature, the haven of rest and tranquility; you fear the God of goodness and accuse him of anger, while he is full of love and mercy.’
\nAfter a deep silence, mingled with sweet dreams, I asked, ‘Speak to me of that beauty which the people interpret and define, each one according to his own conception; I have seen her honored and worshipped in different ways and manners.’
\nShe answered, ‘Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive. When you meet Beauty, you feel that the hands deep within your inner self are stretched forth to bring her into the domain of your heart. It is the magnificence combined of sorrow and joy; it is the Unseen which you see, and the Vague which you understand, and the Mute which you hear – it is the Holy of Holies that begins in yourself and ends vastly beyond your earthly imagination.’
\nThen the Nymph of the Jungle approached me and laid her scented hands upon my eyes. And as she withdrew, I found me alone in the valley. When I returned to the city, whose turbulence no longer vexed me, I repeated her words:
\n‘Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive.’<\/p>\n
\nby Anne Sexton<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nConsider
\na girl who keeps slipping off,
\narms limp as old carrots,
\ninto the hypnotist’s trance,
\ninto a spirit world
\nspeaking with the gift of tongues.
\nShe is stuck in the time machine,
\nsuddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
\nas inward as a snail,
\nlearning to talk again.
\nShe’s on a voyage.
\nShe is swimming further and further back,
\nup like a salmon,
\nstruggling into her mother’s pocketbook.
\nLittle doll child,
\ncome here to Papa.
\nSit on my knee.
\nI have kisses for the back of your neck.
\nA penny for your thoughts, Princess.
\nI will hunt them like an emerald.
\nCome be my snooky
\nand I will give you a root.
\nThat kind of voyage,
\nrank as a honeysuckle.
\nOnce
\na king had a christening
\nfor his daughter Briar Rose
\nand because he had only twelve gold plates
\nhe asked only twelve fairies
\nto the grand event.
\nThe thirteenth fairy,
\nher fingers as long and thing as straws,
\nher eyes burnt by cigarettes,
\nher uterus an empty teacup,
\narrived with an evil gift.
\nShe made this prophecy:
\nThe princess shall prick herself
\non a spinning wheel in her fifteenth year
\nand then fall down dead.
\nKaputt!
\nThe court fell silent.
\nThe king looked like Munch’s Scream
\nFairies’ prophecies,
\nin times like those,
\nheld water.
\nHowever the twelfth fairy
\nhad a certain kind of eraser
\nand thus she mitigated the curse
\nchanging that death
\ninto a hundred-year sleep.
\nThe king ordered every spinning wheel
\nexterminated and exorcised.
\nBriar Rose grew to be a goddess
\nand each night the king
\nbit the hem of her gown
\nto keep her safe.
\nHe fastened the moon up
\nwith a safety pin
\nto give her perpetual light
\nHe forced every male in the court
\nto scour his tongue with Bab-o
\nlest they poison the air she dwelt in.
\nThus she dwelt in his odor.
\nRank as honeysuckle.
\nOn her fifteenth birthday
\nshe pricked her finger
\non a charred spinning wheel
\nand the clocks stopped.
\nYes indeed. She went to sleep.
\nThe king and queen went to sleep,
\nthe courtiers, the flies on the wall.
\nThe fire in the hearth grew still
\nand the roast meat stopped crackling.
\nThe trees turned into metal
\nand the dog became china.
\nThey all lay in a trance,
\neach a catatonic
\nstuck in a time machine.
\nEven the frogs were zombies.
\nOnly a bunch of briar roses grew
\nforming a great wall of tacks
\naround the castle.
\nMany princes
\ntried to get through the brambles
\nfor they had heard much of Briar Rose
\nbut they had not scoured their tongues
\nso they were held by the thorns
\nand thus were crucified.
\nIn due time
\na hundred years passed
\nand a prince got through.
\nThe briars parted as if for Moses
\nand the prince found the tableau intact.
\nHe kissed Briar Rose
\nand she woke up crying:
\nDaddy! Daddy!
\nPresto! She’s out of prison!
\nShe married the prince
\nand all went well
\nexcept for the fear –
\nthe fear of sleep.
\nBriar Rose
\nwas an insomniac…
\nShe could not nap
\nor lie in sleep
\nwithout the court chemist
\nmixing her some knock-out drops
\nand never in the prince’s presence.
\nIf if is to come, she said,
\nsleep must take me unawares
\nwhile I am laughing or dancing
\nso that I do not know that brutal place
\nwhere I lie down with cattle prods,
\nthe hole in my cheek open.
\nFurther, I must not dream
\nfor when I do I see the table set
\nand a faltering crone at my place,
\nher eyes burnt by cigarettes
\nas she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.
\nI must not sleep
\nfor while I’m asleep I’m ninety
\nand think I’m dying.
\nDeath rattles in my throat
\nlike a marble.
\nI wear tubes like earrings.
\nI lie as still as a bar of iron.
\nYou can stick a needle
\nthrough my kneecap and I won’t flinch.
\nI’m all shot up with Novocain.
\nThis trance girl
\nis yours to do with.
\nYou could lay her in a grave,
\nan awful package,
\nand shovel dirt on her face
\nand she’d never call back: Hello there!
\nBut if you kissed her on the mouth
\nher eyes would spring open
\nand she’d call out: Daddy! Daddy!
\nPresto!
\nShe’s out of prison.
\nThere was a theft.
\nThat much I am told.
\nI was abandoned.
\nThat much I know.
\nI was forced backward.
\nI was forced forward.
\nI was passed hand to hand
\nlike a bowl of fruit.
\nEach night I am nailed into place
\nand forget who I am.
\nDaddy?
\nThat’s another kind of prison.
\nIt’s not the prince at all,
\nbut my father
\ndrunkeningly bends over my bed,
\ncircling the abyss like a shark,
\nmy father thick upon me
\nlike some sleeping jellyfish.
\nWhat voyage is this, little girl?
\nThis coming out of prison?
\nGod help –
\nthis life after death?<\/p>\n
\nby Wilfred Owen<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThe beautiful, the fair, the elegant,
\nIs that which pleases us, says Kant,
\nWithout a thought of interest or advantage.
\nI used to watch men when they spoke of beauty
\nAnd measure their enthusiasm. One
\nAn old man, seeing a () setting sun,
\nPraised it () a certain sense of duty
\nTo the calm evening and his time of life.
\nI know another man that never says a Beauty
\nBut of a horse; ()
\nMen seldom speak of beauty, beauty as such,
\nNot even lovers think about it much.
\nWomen of course consider it for hours
\nIn mirrors; ()
\nA shrapnel ball –
\nJust where the wet skin glistened when he swam –
\nLike a fully-opened sea-anemone.
\nWe both said ‘What a beauty! What a beauty, lad’
\nI knew that in that flower he saw a hope
\nOf living on, and seeing again the roses of his home.
\nBeauty is that which pleases and delights,
\nNot bringing personal advantage – Kant.
\nBut later on I heard
\nA canker worked into that crimson flower
\nAnd that he sank with it
\nAnd laid it with the anemones off Dover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"