July 25

“Humanity is great;
And if I would not rather pore upon
An ounce of common, ugly, human dust,
An artisan’s palm, or a peasant’s brow,
Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God,
Than track old Nilus to his silver roots.
. . . . . . . . . . . . set it down
As weakness, - strength by no means,
We, we are shocked at Nature’s falling off,
We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains;
We will not, when she sneezes, look at her
Not even to say, ‘God bless her’. That’s our wrong.
For that she will not trust us often with
Her larger sense of beauty and desire,
But tethers us to a lily or a rose
And bids us diet on the dew inside,
Left ignorant that the hungry beggar-boy
Bears yet a breastful of a fellow-world
To this world undisparaged, undespoiled,
And (while we scorn him for a flower or two,
As being, Heaven help us, less poetical)
Contains himself both flower and firmament,
And surging seas and aspectable stars,
And all that we would push him out of sight
In order to see nearer. Let us pray
God’s grace to keep God’s image in repute.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

"He who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
That he hath never used, and thought with him
Is in its infancy.”

WORDSWORTH