And closely akin to Youth always is Beauty. Beauty and Youth walk arm
in arm everywhere, and one may even go so far as to say anywhere. Youth
cares not where he goes as long as Beauty walks beside him. He will
walk to the ends of the earth. Indeed, he prefers the long way home.
Anybody who has known both Youth and Beauty knows this, and it need not
be argued about much, thank God. And so it is most natural to find this
young poet singing the lyric of Beauty even as he sings the lyric of
Youth. How understandingly he addresses Beauty, and how reverently in
"An Ode to Natural Beauty"!
"Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses,
Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea,
Alone can flush the exalted consciousness
With shafts of sensible divinity,
Light of the World, essential loveliness."
Poems by Alan Seeger.
Then, talking about the "Wanderer" as though that character were some
far off person no kin to the poet (a way that poets have to hide the
pulsing of their own hearts), Seeger writes of Beauty. But we who know
him cannot be made to think that this "Wanderer" is a fellow we do not
know; "nor Launcelot, nor another." It is he, the poet of whom we
write. It bears his imprint. It bears his trade mark. It is stamped
"with the image of the king." He cannot hide from us in this:
"His heart the love of Beauty held as hides
One gem most pure a casket of pure gold.
It was too rich a lesser thing to hold;
It was not large enough for aught besides."
Poems by Alan Seeger.