TRANSMUTATION

To me all beauty that I see

Is melody made visible:

An earth-translated state, may be,

Of music heard in Heaven or Hell.

Out of some love-impassioned strain

Of saints, the rose evolved its bloom;

And, dreaming of it here again,

Perhaps re-lives it as perfume.

Out of some chant that demons sing

Of hate and pain, the sunset grew;

And, haply, still remembering,

Re-lives it here as some wild hue.