from I and Thou, Martin Buber

 

This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul's creative power. What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being; if he commits it and speaks with his being the basic word* to the form that appears, then the creative power is released and the work comes into being.

 

* The basic words are I-You and I-It

 

But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me. Whatsoever belongs to the tree is included: its form and its mechanics, its colour and its chemistry, its conversation with the elements and the stars - all this in its entirety.

from A Faery Song, W .B Yeats

 

Give to these children, new from the world,

Silence and love;

And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,

And the stars above:

 

Give to these children, new from the world,

Rest far from men.

Is anything better, anything better?

Tell us it then: