Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
“What Keats meant was that the further into beauty we go, the more we make it our own, the more our life is immersed in beauty, the nearer we are to truth.” — R. H. Blyth, ZEN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, p. 31
This pastel thinker thinks like lilies might
If they believed that pistils never die.
He thinks that realms where there is never night
Exist, float perfect and are made of sky
And beauty only where the truth grows, known
As to a Buddha or the Christ. The far
Pulsations in the constellations sown
Across the universe are like a star
Choir singing all together and do not
Collide, collapse, or eat each other’s hearts.
Such beauties and their truths are never fraught
With Lucifers and rest in nun- drawn charts.
This doctrine (gorgeous as a burning saint)
Is flawed by falsehood, thinking’s greatest taint.
~ Phillip Whidden