There is a beauty for the reason; grandly independent of externals, It looketh from the windows of the house, shining in the man triumphant. I have seen the broad blank face of some misshapen dwarf Lit on a sudden as with glory, the brilliant light of mind: Who then imagined him deformed? intelligence is blazing on his forehead, There is empire in his eye, and sweetness on his lip, and his brown cheek glittereth with beauty: And I have known some Nireus of the camp, a varnished paragon of chamberers, Fine, elegant, and shapely, moulded as the master-piece of Phidias,-- Such an one, with intellects abased, have I noted crouching to the dwarf, Whilst his lovers scorn the fool, whose beauty hath departed! And there is a beauty for the spirit; mind in its perfect flowering, Fragrant, expanded into soul, full of love and blessed. Go to some squalid couch, some famishing death-bed of the poor; He is shrunken, cadaverous, diseased;--there is here no beauty of the body: Never hath he fed on knowledge, nor drank at the streams of science, He is of the common herd, illiterate;--there is here no beauty of the reason: But lo! his filming eye is bright with love from heaven, In every look it beameth praise, as worshipping with seraphs; What honeycomb is hived upon his lips, eloquent of gratitude and prayer,-- What triumph shrined serene upon that clammy brow, What glory flickering transparent under those thin cheeks,-- What beauty in his face!--Is it not the face of an angel? Now, of these three, infinitely mingled and combined, Consisteth human beauty, in all the marvels of its mightiness: And forth from human beauty springeth the intensity of Love; Feeling, thought, desire, the three deep fountains of affection. Son of Adam, or daughter of Eve, art thou trapped by nature, And is thy young eye dazzled with the pleasant form of beauty? This is but a lower love; still it hath its honour; What God hath made and meant to charm, let not man despise. Nevertheless, as reason's child, look thou wisely farther, For age, disease, and care, and sin, shall tarnish all the surface: Reach a loftier love: be lured by the comeliness of mind,-- Gentle, kind, and calm, or lustrous in the livery of knowledge. And more, there is a higher grade; force the mind to its perfection-- Win those golden trophies of consummate love: Add unto riches of the reason, and a beauty moulded to thy liking, The precious things of nobler grace that well adorn a soul; Thus, be thou owner of a treasure, great in earth and heaven, Beauty, wisdom, goodness, in a creature like its God.