Beauty
I
F I seek and do not find it at my feet,
If I fail to catch it in the arching sky,
If I do not come upon it down my street
Or mark it not in those who pass me by,
If a light along some nearby country lane
Awakens no quick answering ecstasy,
My search for beauty shall have been in vain:
For beauty hides from those who will not see.
To the open vision it is everywhere:
In the prismed jewel of the clinging dew,
In a bird’s wild flight, in the heady golden air,
In the grasses bending as the wind sweeps through.
God leaves no soul impoverished, near or far;
Beauty lies close about us where we are.
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