Friday, 3 October 2025

SOME THOUGHTS ON BEAUTY

 

                                                                               

                                                SOME THOUGHTS ON BEAUTY

             To put it briefly, beauty is the quality of being pleasing to the senses or the mind.

            Some common synonyms of this word are: loveliness, attractiveness, prettiness, elegance, charm, glamour and grace.

            A man is called handsome; a woman, beautiful.

            There is a well-known proverb: Handsome is that handsome does. Its author is Oliver Goldsmith, the Irish poet and novelist (1728-1774).  It means the beautiful actions of a person are more important than his beautiful looks.        

            Great poets have said that a person’s external beauty is not enough to call him beautiful.  He must also be internally beautiful which means have such qualities and virtues as love, kindness, compassion, generosity, loyalty, and gratitude. .    

 

            The English author Francis Quarles (1592-1644) said; If virtue accompanies beauty it is the heart’s paradise; if vice be associate with it, it is the soul’s purgatory. It is the wise man’s bonfire, and the fool’s furnace.

 

            What follows is a poem about perfect beauty in a woman. Its title is SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. It was written by one of the greatest  British  poets Lord Byron (1788-1824).

           

“She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent.

 

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

3rd October 2025

 

 

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