"Beauty in This Iron Age" in Starlanes #11 (Fall 1953); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)
Context: Beauty in this Iron Age must turn
From fluid living rainbow shapes to torn
And sootened fragments, ashes in an urn
On whose gray surface runes are traced by a Norn
Who hopes to wake the Future to arise
In Phoenix-fashion, and to shine with rays
To blast the sight of modern men whose dyes
Of selfishness and lust have stained our days...
Source: What the Bones Tell Us (1997), Ch. 1 Everything You Wanted to Know about Bones (and More)
“As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs.”
The Canonization, stanza 4
“Reader, pray that soon this Iron Age
Will crumble, and Beauty escape the rusting cage.”
"Beauty in This Iron Age" in Starlanes #11 (Fall 1953); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)
Quote from MoMA Highlights, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published in 1999, p. 219 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=78722
1990s - 2000s
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IX, Sec. 11
1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)
“In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.”
Variant: In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.
Source: Parable of the Talents
