The Beautiful

Into perplexity: as an itch chased round   

an oxter or early man in the cave mouth   

watching rain-drifts pour from beyond   

his understanding. Whether to admire   

the mere sensation, enough, or hold out   

for sweeter ornament, vessels of wonder   

born with that ur-charm of symmetry;   

lovely ones we ache to prize and praise,   

climb into and become because they try   

our day-by-day significance: some of us   

ugly and most of us plain, walked past   

in the drowned streets: pearls of paste,   

salted butter, secondary colors. They   

drift unapproached, gazed never-selves,   

blunt paragons of genetic industry. We   

desire them but cannot want such order.   

We stand, mouths open, and cannot help   

stammering our secrets, nailed to water.