"On Beauty" Summary

A poet asks about beauty, and Almustafa asks how one can find beauty except by making beauty one's way and guide. One cannot speak of beauty unless beauty is the weaver of one's speech. The injured and aggrieved say "beauty is kind and gentle, like a young mother half-shy of her glory." The passionate disagree and say that beauty is a thing of might and dread, like a storm. The tired and weary say beauty whispers softly to their spirit and yields to silence. The restless claim to have heard beauty shouting in the mountains with the sounds of wild beasts. At night, watchmen say beauty will rise with the dawn. At noon, workers and sailors say they have seen beauty "leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset." In winter, the snow-bound claim beauty will leap...