Unicorn 4

What is known, is known – known gently, meekly, mildly, sweetly; that’s the experience that men bring back who’ve seen that creature plain. But since the unicorn grazes in all our minds and hearts, each has his image. Poets love to write of that creature as they picture it; but what of those who met it plain in forest glade, upon the hills, or white amidst the waves? It’s said that, then, some poets put away their pens forever or awhile, despairing that their word-hoard holds no words that can describe those things invisible which that creature brings to the mind, when met; some can no longer give it even a name as if that very word can seem to falsify. They’re asked, was it, just, beautiful? – and hesitate, because what yesterday, was ‘beautiful’ is a different word today; that creature shows them that a word means what it does; today, ‘beauty’ has done more in them; it speaks a unity which is not static – can do all things as Helen’s beauty, so we’re told, could make a war from peace; so beauty can make peace from war – as poets prove. And so, those who’ve seen it plain but wish to say no word that might be less than truth find that its subtle magic guides their pen so that they may write with that same ease with which that creature lives, write of any, and of all things. And all who’ve seen it – who’ve seen it move within the utter stillness of itself as never before have they seen a creature move and hold that in themselves, wish, wordless, to return to be again in that creature’s still shared self-presence; the wisest of them finally to find that it may graze forever in the poet’s mind.