Psalm 144 / Romans 11:25-36 / John 11:28-44

Sonnet of Black Beauty

Black beauty, which above that common light,
    Whose power can no colors here renew
    But those which darkness can again subdue,
Dost still remain unvaried to the sight,
And like an object equal to the view
    Art neither changed with day nor hid with night;
    When all those colors which the world calls bright,
And which old poetry doth so pursue,
Are with the night so perishèd and gone
    That of their being there remains no mark,
Thou still abidest so entirely one.
    That we may know thy blackness is a spark
Of light inaccessible, and alone
    Our darkness which can make us think it dark.

— Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582-1648)