Up through the mud and gravel Beauty climbs To light plain things of earth in sun and wet, Till what we must have passed a thousand times We some day see, and never can forget! Strange how the thousand times fade out at last And leave the one time when our eyes could see -- How Beauty with a touch rubs out the Past, And sets a new mark up for memory. A boulder beautiful beyond belief, Witch-hazel blossoms bitten by the cold, Touched with a sudden beauty, bright and brief, Make pictures that we see till we are old; Ay, what has once been a transfigured thing Halts us, long after, with remembering. |