Was never form and never face <br />So sweet to SEYD as only grace <br />Which did not slumber like a stone, <br />But hovered gleaming and was gone. <br />Beauty chased he everywhere, <br />In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. <br />He smote the lake to feed his eye <br />With the beryl beam of the broken wave; <br />He flung in pebbles well to hear <br />The moment's music which they gave. <br />Oft pealed for him a lofty tone <br />From nodding pole and belting zone. <br />He heard a voice none else could hear <br />From centred and from errant sphere. <br />The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, <br />Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime. <br />In dens of passion, and pits of woe, <br />He saw strong Eros struggling through, <br />To sun the dark and solve the curse, <br />And beam to the bounds of the universe. <br />While thus to love he gave his days <br />In loyal worship, scorning praise, <br />How spread their lures for him in vain <br />Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain! <br />He thought it happier to be dead, <br />To die for Beauty, than live for bread.<br /><br />Ralph Waldo Emerson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/beauty-230/
