Beauty

Beauty means this to one and that to the other.

And yet when anyone of us has seen that

which to him is beautiful he has known an emotion

which is in every case the same in kind.

A ship in sail

a blooming flower,

a town at night,

a lovely poem,

leaf shadows,

a child's grace,

the starry skies,

apple trees in spring,

the thought of beauty,

these are the drops of rain

that keep the human spirit from death by draught.

They are a stealing and a silent refreshment

that we perhaps do not think about

but which goes on all the time.

Beauty is the smile on the earth's face,

open to all,

and needs but the eyes to see,

mood to understand.