The Sea Retains Such Images

The sea retains such images

in her ever-changing waves;

for all her infinite variety, and the forms,

inexhaustible, of her loves,

she is constant always in beauty,

which to us need be nothing more

than a harmony with the wave on which we move.

All ugliness is a dotortion

of the lovely lines and curves

which sincerity makes ouf ot hands

and bodies moving in air.

Beauty is ordered in nature

as the wind and sea

shape each other for pleasure; as the just

know, who learn of happiness

from the report of their own actions.

• Louis Dudek from Europe, 1954