63 On Beauty

名称：63 On Beauty
内容简介：
晨读英语美文 文化百科
[00:02.13]Where shall you seek beauty,
[00:03.99]and how shall you find her unless
[00:06.83] she herself be your way and your guide?
[00:09.81]And how shall you speak of her except
[00:13.25] she be the weaver of your speech?
[00:15.86]The aggrieved and the injured say,
[00:19.11] “Beauty is kind and gentle.
[00:21.75] Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory
[00:25.70] she walks among us.”
[00:27.66]And the passionate say,
[00:30.13]“Nay , beauty is a thing of might and dread.
[00:34.16] Like the tempest
[00:35.85] she shakes the earth beneath us and sky above us.”
[00:40.04]The tired and the weary say,
[00:42.64]“Beauty is of soft whisperings.
[00:45.43]She speaks in our spirit.
[00:47.71]Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light
[00:52.27] that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
[00:54.80]But the restless say,
[00:57.30]“We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
[01:00.39]and with her cries came the sound of hoofs,
[01:03.93]and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
[01:07.68]At night the watchmen of the city say,
[01:11.22] “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
[01:15.02]And at noon-time the toilers say,
[01:18.65] “We have seen her leaning over the earth
[01:21.70] from the windows of the sunset.”
[01:23.85]In winter say the snowbound,
[01:26.57] “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”
[01:30.74]And in the summer heat the reapers say,
[01:33.89]“We have seen her dancing
[01:36.28]with the autumn leaves,
[01:37.60] and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”
[01:40.91]All these things have you said of beauty,
[01:44.77]yet in truth you spoke not of her
[01:48.14] but of needs unsatisfied,
[01:50.69]and beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
[01:54.37] It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
[02:00.28] but rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
[02:04.63]It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
[02:10.16] but rather an image you see though you close your eyes
[02:14.47] and a song you hear
[02:16.37]though you shut your ears. It is not sap within the furrowed bark,
[02:21.69]nor a wing attached to a claw, but rather a garden for ever in bloom
[02:28.08]and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
[02:31.45]Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.