Hadlock Brook Reflection

To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things —earth,
          stone and water
Beast, man and woman, sun, moon, and stars —
The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts,
          frenzies and passions,
And inhuman nature its towering reality —
For man’s half dream; man, you might say, is nature
          dreaming, but rock
And water and sky are constant — to feel
Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the
          natural
Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
The rest’s diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the
          intricate ideas,
The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason.


The Beauty of Things, by Robinson Jeffers