Beauty and Love
I came across these lines by Goethe this week:
What rosebuds are, we first may learn
Now, when the flow’ring season ends.
Late on its stalk one bloom still shines,
And, lone, fulfils the flower world.
We are used to some roses and other flowers producing blossoms at this otherwise autumnal time of the year, the roses outside of our church are a case in point. Goethe is suggesting that these lone blossoms that we can see out of season, complete our understanding of the real beauty of roses.
The most famous and most often read chapter of the Bible: 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter about ‘love’ make the same point. St Paul writes: ‘now we see as in a mirror dimly but then we will see face to face’. The full disclosure of beauty and love may only come at the end or even beyond the end.
Bernhard Schunemann
19 October 2025
Original text:
Nun weiß man erst, was Rosenknospe sei, // Jetzt, da die Rosenzeit vorbei; // Ein Spätling noch am Stocke glänzt // Und ganz allein die Blumenwelt ergänzt.
Translated for this window by (Revd Prof) Robert Evans
