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2.2.4.4: Hymn to Beauty

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    Hymn to Beauty

    Hymn to Beauty License: Public Domain Charles Baudelaire Cyril Scott

    O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell?

    Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine,

    Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell,

    And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.

    Thy look containeth both the dawn and sunset stars,

    Thy perfumes, as upon a sultry night exhale,

    Thy kiss a philter, and thy mouth a Grecian vase,

    That renders heroes cowardly and infants hale.

    Yea, art thou from the planets, or the fiery womb?

    The demon follows in thy train, with magic fraught,

    Thou scatter'st seeds haphazardly of joy and doom,

    Thou govern'st everything, but answer'st unto nought.

    O Loveliness! thou spurnest corpses with delight,

    Among thy jewels, Horror hath such charms for thee,

    And Murder 'mid thy mostly cherished trinklets bright,

    Upon thy massive bosom dances amorously.

    The blinded, fluttering moth towards the candle flies,

    Then frizzles, falls, and falters—"Blessings unto thee"—

    The panting swain that o'er his beauteous mistress sighs,

    Seems like the Sick, that stroke their gravestones lovingly.

    What matter, if thou comest from the Heavens or Hell,

    O Beauty, frightful ghoul, ingenuous and obscure!

    So long thine eyes, thy smile, to me the way can tell

    Towards that Infinite I love, but never saw.

    From God or Satan? Angel, Mermaid, Proserpine?

    What matter if thou makest—blithe, voluptuous sprite—

    With rhythms, perfumes, visions—O mine only queen!—

    The universe less hideous and the hours less trite.

    This page titled 2.2.4.4: Hymn to Beauty is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anita Turlington, Matthew Horton, Karen Dodson, Laura Getty, Kyounghye Kwon, Georgia, & Laura Ng (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.