Beauty hurts

I have been meditating on beauty. I read this in a book recently:

"He remembered as though it were but a few days ago that winter night, himself too young even to know the meaning of beauty, when he had looked up at a delicate tracery of bare branches against the icy glittering stars: suddenly something that was, all at once, pain and longing and adoring had welled up in him, almost choking him. He had wanted to tell someone, but he had no words, inarticulate in the pain and glory. It was long afterwards that he realised that it had been his first aesthetic experience. That nameless something that had stopped his heart was Beauty. Even now, for him, 'bare branches against the stars' was a synonym for beauty."
(from A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken)

When I read it- I sat up straight, and said to myself, "that's it!" I've had that feeling before, but could never find words to describe it. I've felt it this Fall when I have driven through countrysides in southern Ontario, and seen the trees changing colours- almost too awesome to behold. I've felt it when looking at the flowers given to me for my birthday. There is a longing there, to fully behold it, but part of me realizes that it is too much for me. Before I can fully appreciate them, the leaves will fall from the trees, and the flowers will wilt and die. There is something about beauty that is higher than my understanding.

I think there is something that hints of God in all of this.