Poetry Friday: Before a Painting

For everyone who has ever been overcome by ineffable beauty:

Before a Painting
James Weldon Johnson

I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine
What I beheld; nor by what laws of art
He had created life and love and heart
On canvas, from mere color, curve and line.
Silent I stood and made no move or sign;
Not with the crowd, but reverently apart;
Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start,
But mutely gazed upon that face divine.

And over me the sense of beauty fell,
As music over a raptured listener to
The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn;
Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell,
There falls the aureate glory filtered through
The windows in some old cathedral dim.

(This poem is in the public domain.)

~~~~~

James Weldon Johnson gets me, every time. Read more of his work here.

The round up is at The Logonauts today.