Harold Cook

ALL things that are beautiful

Fragile, mute and sensual,

Must be broken ere they be

Clad in immortality.

Slanting sunlight on the grass

Vanishes while clouds pass.

Like bright mirrors, lakes at rest

Shatter on a swan’s breast.

Quiet water and the sun

Only then are known to one,

Only then, when lost, they find

Their actuality in mind.

So, like sunlight, love must go

That love’s perfection we may know.

One must die, and then the other

Of the two, the loved and lover.

Freed of separate bodies, they

Are born as one in their new day.

Symbol then of love they rise

Starry, lovely, to our eyes.