“‘I know that space and time, beyond the temporal grave,
Weave me a mystic crown, free from all earthly flaw.

Not emeralds, not all the pearls of the deep sea,
All the rare metals, every lost and buried gem
Antique Palmyra hides, could ever seem to me
So beautiful as that clear glittering diadem.
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Of Light, of Light alone, it will be fashioned, Light
Drawn from the holy fount, rays primitive and pure,
Whereof the eyes of mortal men, so starry bright,
Are but the mirrors, mirrors cloudy and obscure.’”

—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), from Benediction, translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1936.