THE BEAUTY OF THINGS
—Robinson Jeffers
To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things—
earth, stone and water,
Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars—
The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts,
frenzies and passions,
And unhuman nature its towering reality—
For man's half dream; man, you might say, is nature
dreaming, but rock
And water and sky are constant—to feel
Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural
Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
The rest's diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the
intricate ideas,
The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason.
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—Medusa
