Poems by Christopher Pearse Cranch

Men talk of Beauty—of the earth and sky,
And the blue stillness of sweet inland waters,
And search all language with a lover's eye,
For flowers of praise to deck earth's glorious daughters.
And it is well within the soul to cherish
Such love for all things beautiful around.
But there is Beauty that can never perish;
A hidden path no “vulture's eye” hath found.
Vainly ye seek it who in Sense alone
Wander amid the sweets the world hath given;
As vainly ye who make the Mind the throne,
While the Heart bends a slave, insulted, driven.
Thou who wouldst know what Beauty this can be,
Look on the sunlight of the Soul's deep purity.

1836.

“There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen.”— Job xxviii. 7.

University of Virginia Library

VIII. BEAUTY.