On the subject of Beauty.

Death of St. Sebastian

There are many things to be said about beauty in our day in age. For many, it was that which came from an imagination, that though tainted by the passions, brought forth the whimsical-musings of a longing for the tranquil and inspiring. 


In our common day in age, art has lost its transcendent and benevolent wonder. Instead, art has been replaced by illogical, basic, fundamental-immoderate caricatures of an unsound mind. Leonardo DaVinci claims that "inaction sap the vigors of the mind" and that is exactly the problem in a utilitarianistic world such as our own. The respect for the person has been lost and in that loss is that of art.  


Many great minds of the past, philosophers, historians, authors, musicians, theologians and pagans have subscribed to inner soul which releases the spiritual essence on a corporeal vision. Plato once said "Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."  Or as Edgar Degas says, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Whatever the product your raising, whatever you believe in, that is what you will make people see. 


Here is a video done by the BBC about how Beauty has been lost in the world. Beauty has been set aside, and modernity has replaced it as the model of art, but as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says, “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” 

The Crown of a Woman

G.K. Chesterton wrote this exquisite, lyrical, poem on the beauty of a woman. Focusing mainly on that which catches every man's eye and what St. Paul told women to cover up (because they were distracting of course) "But when a woman has long hair, it is her glory!" (1 Corinthians 11:15)

- The Crown of a Woman - 

In a house between the sunrise and the sunset
In the twilight of a mighty house and old,
Sits a woman ' mid the treasuries of her tresses
Like the fountains of a living sea of gold,

Photo not my own. 

And she weaves the golden legend of the ages
With the braids of her own tresses thereunto
And only with that tracery for the pages
Is the story ever old and ever new.
        For the hair of a woman is her glory
        It weaveth all of secret and renown
        Through all chivalry and mystery and story
              The glory of a woman and her crown.

When the giant limbs of Adam stirred primeval
From the sudden sleep that smote him on the hills
When the sparrows scattered at his vast upheaval
And his blinded gropings rent the daffodils
On his mighty twilight broke a windy splendor (I really would like to know what this means)
Round eyes that were as suns upon his sleep
The burning halo passionate with colours
The leaping locks that call the heart to leap
        For the hair of a woman is her glory
        It weaveth all of secret and renown

Lady of Chivalry

        Through all chivalry and mystery and story
              The glory of a woman and her crown.

The sunshine of the Lord that crowns and quickens
The brows and breasts of all the lives that toil.
The cornfield of the Lord that nods and shimmers
The stirring of the splendor of the soil
The harp-strings of the Lord that ring and crackle
With the song of all the stars and their desire
The war-flame of the Lord, to scourge the Evil
The fangs thereof consuming as a fire
        For the hair of a woman is her glory.
        It weaveth all of secret and renown
        Through all chivalry and mystery and story
               The glory of a woman and her crown.

A Christening Post!

Let's Christen this blog with a Post from a very favorite Poet of mine. The Good-Man William Butler Yeats, is a silver-tongued lyricist, whose writings and poems have filled the heart with merry cheer. When one is alone, and feels the shadows of life upon them, all they need to do is open his writings, and a ray of calm shall penetrate their sorrows, and leave them with the scent of a strong drink, burning from their lungs. It doth warm the heart, as they say!

W.B. Yeats

“WINE comes in at the mouth 
And love comes in at the eye; 
That's all we shall know for truth 
Before we grow old and die. 
I lift the glass to my mouth, 
I look at you, and sigh.” 
― W.B. Yeats