Beauty

Oh ! why is beauty still a bud, infolding
A greater beauty that can never be,

Yet always is its faint fair self beholding,
In all of fair and good that man may see ?

Nay, beauty is with thee the power of life.
The germ and sweet idea of thy being ;

As beauty fashion'd that first maid and wife,
That made primeval man rejoice in seeing.

He dream'd of beauty, and he wish'd to see
A form to be the substance of his dream ;
So want begot a child on vacancy,
And that now is which did before but seem.
Adam did love before he look'd on Eve ;
He found himself unblest in Eden's bower.
A love there is that does not yet conceive
Its own existence : 'tis a simple power, —

A power that most does recognise its might
In weakness, want, and everlasting yearning ;

Whose heaven is soaring, seeking, ceaseless flight.
Whose hell is thirst and everlasting burning.
For what is hell, but an eternal thirst.
And burning for the bounty once rejected ?

And what is heaven, but good on earth rehearsed,
In the calm centre of the Lord perfected ?

Then ask not why is beauty but a bud.
That never more than half itself discloses ;

Sweet flower, like thee is every human good,
And love divine is seen in unblown roses.