Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our Life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home...
Love the beautiful in everything; it is a ray of light divine. It is love's beauty. The beautiful thrills us into a kind of ecstasy, suspending the din of our inward activity in the silence of admiration; and admiration gives our nature a kind of fulfillment, a restful satiety asking for nothing more. It is the very essence of contemplative adoration.