A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet X

Whence is our pleasure in things beautiful?
We are not born with it, we do not know,
By instinct of the eye or natural rule,
That naked rocks are fairest, or flowers blow
Best in their clefts, or that the world of snow
Has other glory than of cold and ice.
From our mother's hand we viewed these things below
Senseless as goats which browse a precipice,
Till we were taught to know them. With what tears
I con the lessons now I learned so well,
Of mountain shapes, from those dead lips of hers;
And as she spoke, behold, a miracle
Proving her words,--for at our feet there grew,
Beauty's last prodigy, a gentian blue.