We must be tender with all budding things.

Our Maker let no thought of Calvary

Trouble the morning stars in their first song.

~William Butler Yeats, from The Land of Heart’s Desire

The poet William Butler Yeats referred to himself as “the last romantic”,
He meant that in the broader sense of his company with Keats,
He must have winked as he said it.

Romance is a popular topic, but it’s a cheap drink these days.
The beating heart of romance is beauty,
Yeats wrote elsewhere in his poem Adam’s Curse,

we “must labor to be beautiful.”

When God made the world it was “very good” but sin’s scar runs deep.
We scratch & claw at the earth to make it yield fruit & our every effort
to reclaim paradise is an imperfect, losing battle.

We all share the poet’s agony of at once answering the call of God’s image
wherein we were created, yet struggle to see glory through the darkened glass
behind which we are imprisoned.

Yes, we were born for beauty & though we can only dream of the day when we
are finally, ultimately saved from the presence of sin, our souls rejoice that we are
already saved from its penalty.

To such love we can only aspire & surrender our grateful hearts to the great lover
of our soul.

Rick Wilcox

JOB 38:1–7

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:

“Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge?

Now prepare yourself like a man;

I will question you & you shall answer Me.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements?

Surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?

To what were its foundations fastened?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

When the morning stars sang together,

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

I’ve noticed in growing lettuce indoors that the leaves of the lettuce are thin & weak.

After a little research I’ve read that placing a fan on them will strengthen the leaves.

We need the winds of adversity to stretched & strengthen the fabric of our lives.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS AND BEAUTY

Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, the eldest son of an artist.
Although the family soon moved to London, the children spent much time with
their grandparents in County Sligo in northwestern Ireland.
The scenery & folklore of this region greatly influenced Yeats’s work.

One of Ireland’s finest writers, William Butler Yeats served a long apprenticeship
in the arts before his genius was fully developed. He did some of his greatest work
after he was 50 years old.

Yeats understood the paradox of beauty’s relationship to innocence
yet likewise the struggle necessitated by time to apprehend it in a
fallen world.

As he wrote in his poem “Adam’s Curse,” “we must labor to be beautiful.”

ADAM’S CURSE

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

We sat together at one summer’s end,

That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,

And you and I, and talked of poetry.

I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;

Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

Better go down upon your marrow-bones

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones

Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.’

And thereupon

That beautiful mild woman for whose sake

There’s many a one shall find out all heartache

On finding that her voice is sweet and low

Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know—

Although they do not talk of it at school—

That we must labour to be beautiful.’

I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing

Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be

So much compounded of high courtesy

That they would sigh and quote with learned looks

Precedents out of beautiful old books;

Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;

We saw the last embers of daylight die,

And in the trembling blue-green of the sky

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell

Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell

About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:

That you were beautiful, and that I strove

To love you in the old high way of love;

That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown

As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.