Explore "Beauty Making" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Methinks there is no greater work in life / Than making beauty. Can the mind conceive / One little corner in celestial realms / Unbeautiful, or dull or commonplace? / Or picture ugly angels, illy clad? / Beauty and splendour, opulence and joy, / Are attributes of God and His domain, / And so are worth and virtue. But why preach / Of virtue only to the sons of men, / Ignoring beauty, till they think it sin? / Why, if each dweller on this little globe / Could know the sacred meaning of that word / And understand its deep significance, / Men's thoughts would form in beauty, till their dreams / Of heaven would find expression in their lives, / However humble; they themselves would grow / Godlike, befitting such a fair estate.
Let us be done with what is only good, / Demanding here and now the beautiful; / Lest, with the mind and eye on earth untrained, / We shall be ill at ease when heaven is gained.