A spray of frangipani’s fading scent,
Its boughs so bare and ugly, squat and bent,
As bald, and blunt, and grey, as oligarchs.
Much beauty swells from such unlovely arks.

Of jagged rock, rough bricks and mortar slings
Men raise the palaces of czars and kings,
From smelly turpentine, slimed paint and stone,
A craft is birthed that thrills us to the bone.

Those labyrinths in which great artists weave
Would chill the hearts of many; to believe
That beauty springs from beauty is to err.
Few things reveal the shapes of what they were.

  All those who know these truths are set apart:
  ‘The art lies in concealment of the art.’