The Tao Te Ching is partly in prose, partly in verse; but as we define poetry now, not by rhyme and meter but as a patterned intensity of language, the whole thing is poetry. I wanted to catch that poetry, its terse, strange beauty. Most translations have caught meanings in their net, but prosily, letting the beauty slip through. And in poetry, beauty is no ornament; it is the meaning. It is the truth. We have that on good authority.
Ursula K. Le Guin, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
beauty, meaning, poetry, prose, tao-te-ching, translation