Be under no illusion, you shall
gather to
yourself the images you love. As you go, the
shapes, the lights, the shadows of the things you
have preferred will come to you, yes, inveterately,
inevitably as bees to their hive. And there in your
mind and spirit they will leave with you their
distilled essence, sweet as honey or bitter as gall,
and you will grow unto their likeness because their
nature will be in you.
As men see the color
in the wave so shall
men see in you the thing you have loved most.
Out of your eyes will look the spirit you have chosen.
In your smile and in your frown the years will speak.
You will not walk nor
stand nor sit, nor will
your hand move, but you will confess the one you
serve, and upon your forehead will be written his
name as by a revealing pen.
Cleverness may select skillful
words to cast
a veil about you, and circumspection may never
sleep, yet will you not be hid. No.
As year adds to year, that face
of yours,
which once like an unwritten page, lay smooth in
your baby crib, will take to itself lines, and still
more lines, as the parchment of an old historian
who jealously sets down all the story. And there,
more deep than acids etch the steel, will grow the
inscribed narrative of your mental habits, the
emotions of your heart, your sense of conscience,
your response to duty, what you think of your God
and of your fellowmen and of yourself. It will all
be there. For men become like that which they
love, and the name thereof is written on their brow.
|
