Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BEAUTY, by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BEAUTY, by                    
First Line: Blessed be beauty, that awaits
Last Line: And all their world was good.
Subject(s): Beauty


BLESSED be Beauty, that awaits
Our vision at our very gates!
There hangs above these meadows low
As richly strange an opal glow
As deepens into violet
Behind a Moorish minaret,
Or where the Sphinx outstares the years.
The little hills of Ramapo
Smile eastward full as goldenly
When fades the last supplanted star
As mighty mountains, rising far
Beyond the leagues of sapphire sea
That cradle white Algiers.

BLESSED be God who gave to me
A thankful heart and eyes that see,
Who set my feet in quiet ways
Amid his garden sweet with praise.
And yet -- oh Father! what of them
Who may not even touch the hem
Of Beauty's robe -- at the harsh urge
Of hopeless pain and poverty
Forever plying weary hands,
Forever straining weary eyes,
To whom the sun's ecstatic rise
Means one day more of toil's demands --
The lifting of the scourge?

AND yet, once more -- a Beauty lies
Beyond the gaze of any eyes,
Beyond the sunset islands far,
Above the throbbing morning-star,
And deeper than the sea is deep.
I have beheld, as one in sleep
Beholds a dream scarce understood,
Two lives defaced as failures are,
Ruins to pity and despise,
Maimed butts of fortune, best forgot.
These captives of the sordid lot
Looked in each other's faded eyes
And all their world was good.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net