Sunset beauty
Beauty has a way of catching you while you’re totally not ready for it. It’s the kinda thing that you will stop what you’re doing just to take a second look. Today I took my time to admire the sunset from my house.
It reminded me of:
1. The same New Jersey sunset, with a pink sky and clouds, as I drove 40km from New Jersey downtown to South Bound Brook in the New Jersey suburbs.
2. A poem in Desire by Wordsworth:
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream…
Heaven lies about us in our infancy;
(then the sad part – italics mine)
Shades of the prison house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he holds the light, and whence it flows.
He sees it in his joy;…
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
(Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollection of Childhood)
3. The song Morning has Broken
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the word
Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
