Friday, July 28, 2006

On beauty; how deep?

As i sit slumped in the tube, a 'poem of hte underground' catches my attention. i perk up, and;

Beauty is impelled to find a face to dwell in:
there, delight is such
that I seek nothing more;
I would scour the sky to share with the elect this living grace.
The works of their Creator bear his sign
So if my soul burns fiercely with love of all fair shapes,
then judgement from above Must hold me guiltless:
because beauty is divine.

La Forza d'un bel viso a che mi sprona.
Michelangelo

My heart sighs so deeply it almost breaks. But the beauty i see, or wish seen in me, would more realistically be;

A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there Enthralls the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving note)In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick
Delight in Disorder.

If anything i did get however; it was this;

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Yeats.
He wishes for the cloths of Heaven.

And in elegant cursive it read;

To Alia; My favorite Student. Who trod softly and most delightfully.

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