History: The Prophet: On Beauty

Source of version: 2 (current)

||On Beauty| 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 your are the mirror.| || ||((The Prophet|The Prophet)) |le prije ctuca / le pijyctu (the wise teacher) ((The Prophet: The Coming of the Ship)) |.i nu selklama le bloti ((The Prophet: On Love)) |lo ka prami ((The Prophet: On Marriage)) |lo nu speni ((The Prophet: On Children)) |lo panzi ((The Prophet: On Giving)) |lo nu dunda ((The Prophet: On Eating and Drinking)) |lo nu citka je pinxe ((The Prophet: On Work)) |lo zu'o gunka ((The Prophet: On Joy and Sorrow)) |lo li'i gleki je badri ((The Prophet: On Houses)) |lo zdani ((The Prophet: On Clothes)) |lo taxfu ((The Prophet: On Buying and Selling)) |lo nu tevecnu je vecnu ((The Prophet: On Crime and Punishment)) |lo zekri .e lo nu sfasa ((The Prophet: On Laws)) |lo flalu ((The Prophet: On Freedom)) |lo za'i zifre ((The Prophet: On Reason and Passion)) | lo nu krinu pensi .e lo se cinmo ((The Prophet: On Pain)) | lo nu dunku ((The Prophet: On Self-Knowledge)) | lo nu sevzi djuno ((The Prophet: On Teaching)) | lo nu ctuca ((The Prophet: On Friendship)) | lo nu pendo ((The Prophet: On Talking)) | lo nu tavla ((The Prophet: On Time)) | lo temci ((The Prophet: On Good and Evil)) | lo ka vrude .e lo ka pacna ((The Prophet: On Prayer)) | lo nu jdaselsku ((The Prophet: On Pleasure)) | lo za'i pluka ((The Prophet: On Beauty)) | lo ka melbi ((The Prophet: On Religion)) | lo lijde ((The Prophet: On Death)) | lo nu morsi ((The Prophet: The Farewell)) | le nu cusku zo co'o||