by C. S. Lewis
Have you not seen that in our days
Of any whose story, song, or art
Delights us, our sincerest praise
Means, when all's said, 'You break my heart'?
* * *
One of my favorite little short poems. Why is it that the most beautiful things always break our hearts? Is it because only what we love can break our heart -- or because we love what already breaks our heart?
It reminds me of Edna St. Vincent Millay's "My soul is all but out of me" -- things can be too beautiful to bear, so beautiful they hurt, and yet we don't want to stop looking at them. I suppose it's just because our hearts hurt from being overfilled, and yet we want to fill our hearts with beautiful things all the same.
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