Poetic-Verses from ATHANASE
Girl with a Pearl Earring
to Michael Sweerts
'True poets can create good poems immediately, effortlessly and without imperfection.'
Yehudah ha-Levi, Liber Cosri
Beauty exists a priori in the Wisdom of God,
which shines on Time and enables created form to take up its pose,
Beauty, your supernatural grace and your vow to show matter in the clearest light
bring ecstasy to our hearts and the world's magnificence to our eyes!
Lord of Light, let my soul mystically penetrate
this portrait which sings the supreme Idea of the Beautiful,
a direct vision of the invisible seal of the Spirit
which presses into matter in the pithy form of fire!
O dizzying art, through what sublime magic,
through what divine madness can thought produce
the inner melody of this face haunted
by a thousand frivolous secrets, a thousand intimate reveries!
What are these half-open lips saying to infinity,
and these moist eyes peering into the vast empty night?
translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodges
17.01.08.
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Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring
