Page:Three Plays Sunderland Hills.pdf/162

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Father Bernadine:

Let be, let be, to all who love her well
Still Beauty speaks a universal tongue
Unknowing strife of Babel-jargoning,
And Art can make you from your servitude
Of task unlovely, uncongenial toil,
Free citizens of dear Callipolis
The Soul's ideal city! Never deem
That Beauty is a thing remote, ensky'd
Outside our daily being, think her not
A parasite upon the Tree of Life,
But that fair bough's supremest blossoming.
Essential Beauty mortals never know
But Nature's beauty, its reflection,
Partaker in it, but by matter marr'd
The fair face mirror'd in a metal dim.
Still when very Beauty comes to birth
Led of a legend, steering by a star,
The world's Wise Men set forth on pilgrimage,
And if they find it they are bless'd indeed,