BEAUTIFUL THINGS

 

BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Beauty is defined as handsomeness, attractiveness, loveliness, charm, glamour, etc., and literally what is beautiful is lovely, attractive, good-looking, pleasing, delightful, winsome, graceful, elegant, etc.  All  these definitions pertain to the appearance of their possessors. However, lovely  appearance alone is not enough to call a woman beautiful.  She must be having some virtues to deserve this title.  Action rather than appearance should be the basis of calling a thing or a person to be beautiful. The point is that beauty without virtuous actions is sham. It has to be actively good to claim the title of beautiful.

 

The poem that follows bears the title ‘BEAUTIFUL THINGS’.  It is the creation of American poetess Ellen Palmer Allerton (1835-1893). She is best remembered for this poem and really deserves to be so.  The major part of the poem describes how human organs like faces, eyes, lips, hands, feet and shoulders can be meritoriously  called beautiful.

 

According to her:

 

Beautiful faces are those that wear---

It matters little if dark or fair---

whole-souled honesty printed there.

 

Beautiful eyes are those that  show,

Like crystal panes where hearth fires glow,

Beautiful, thoughts that burn below.

 

 Beautiful lips are those whose words

Leap from  the heart like songs of birds,

Yet whose utterance prudent girds.

 

Beautiful hands are those that do

Work that is honest and brave and true,

Moment by moment the long day through.

 

Beautiful feet are those that go

On kindly ministries to and  fro,

Down lowliest ways, if God wills it so.

 

Beautiful shoulders are those that bear

Ceaseless burdens of homely care

With patient grace and daily prayer.

 

Beautiful lives are those that bless

Silent rivers of happiness,

Whose hidden fountains but few may guess.

 

Beautiful twilight at set of sun

Beautiful goal with race well won,

Beautiful  rest with work well done.

 

Beautiful graves where grasses creep,

Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep

Over worn-out hands ---oh! beautiful sleep!

 

            NOTE AND REMEMBER

 Beautiful hands are those that do

Work  that is honest and brave and true

 To conclude, beauty  alone cannot be called the summum bonum of life. It has to be blended with two other qualities i.e.  goodness and truth to become the complete picture  that has been conceived and presented  by so many saints and seers of the world.

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22 April 2022                                                                           G.R.KANWAL