Who, if I cried out, would hear me amonng the angelic
orders? And even if one of them pressed me
suddenly to his heart: I’d be consumed 
in his stronger existence. For beauty is nothing 
but the beginning of terror, which we can just barely endure, 
and we stand in awe of it as it cooly disdains 
to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

—from The First Duino Elegy, Rainer Maria Rilke