A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy For Ever

William Wordsworth, the greatest worshipper of nature, looked at the scene of daffodils. He was spellbound. He wrote:

“A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company.”

He carried the beautiful scene with him. It became a permanent source of joy for him. That is why he wrote:

“For oft when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

and then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.”

Referring to the enchanting, melodious song of the solitary reaper, the same poet wrote:

“The music in my heart I bore

Long after it was heard no more.”

Nobody can deny that a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Keat’s famous poem “Endymion” begins with the immortal lines:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bover quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

These lines contain the essence of Keat’s poetic creed. He believed that a thing of beauty is a source of eternal joy. Beauty never declines. It is a source of peace, sweet dreams, and inner satisfaction. He echoed Spenser who said:

“For all that is fair, is, by nature good.”

Keats perfected this creed and summed it up in his immortal lines:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty–that is all

Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”

Later on Rossetti wrote: “Any Beauty which is not Truthful and any Truth which is not Beautiful (if there be any such) are of no use to humanity.” He believed that to the human mind Beauty and Truth are identical, Matthew Arnold said that to see things in their beauty is to see things in their truth. Gandhi Ji also believed that all Truth is beautiful.

Beauty is the source of the greatest joy in life. It arouses the highest sensibilities in man. An object of beauty removes the clouds of gloom from the human spirit. While enumerating objects of beauty, Keats mentions the sun, the moon, trees, daffodils, tragedies of the great men of the past, and tales of love and glory. Association with beauty increases our love for it. Keats wrote that, with a great poet, the sense of beauty overcomes every other consideration. He loved the principle of beauty in all things and sought it everywhere. It is said that Keats was Greek-born in England. The Greeks identified beauty with truth. So did Keats.

Other great romantic poets also sang of beauty. Byron often mentions the fascination of the dark eyes of a woman. Coleridge sang of the spell of an Abyssinian maid on him. To a true lover of beauty, the whole world is beautiful. Beauty is to be found not merely in symmetry, proportion and harmony but in all things. This realisation of the immanence of beauty sublimates man’s entire spiritual self. With this realisation comes the acceptance of life and with this acceptance is revealed the relationship between the truthful and the beautiful.

The Sanskrit saying, “Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam” contains the same truth. Beauty is one with truth and goodness. To the man of religion, this is the highest attribute of God. In moments of revelation, God reveals Himself to His devotees in all objects. Then the man finds the relationship between truth and goodness which is inevitably the embodiment of beauty. Then God too seems one with beauty and whatever has that beauty is good.

Beauty is eternal like God; it is omnipresent like Him. When a man is able to appreciate this truth, he finds good even in things evil. This is the essence of the preaching of the Gita.