BEAUTIFUL THINGS

 

 

                                                BEAUTIFUL THINGS

            “Beautiful Things” is the title of the poem written by Elllen P. Allerton. She was born Ellen Palmer on October 17, 1835 at Centerville, New York, United States; and died 0n August 31, 1893 at Padonia, Brown County, Kansas, United States.

            By occupation, she was not only a poet but also a teacher and a farmer.

            She was married to Alpheus Burton Allerton who was also a  farmer.

            Ellen is  remembered  for two more poems : The Trail of Fortynine and Walls of Corn.

            In the poem Beautiful Things Ellen shifts her focus from physical appearance to the phrase  Summum Bonum which means “the highest good” or “supreme good”. The three words which define this Latin phrase are goodness, beauty and truth.

            For Ellen not physical charm and attraction, but the virtues of persons are the basis of  theirbeauty.

She believes in the English proverb which says: Handsome is that handsome does.

            The ethical qualities  which make people  beautiful are : honesty,  goodness, hard work , kindness, selflessness, and  pure soul, etc.

            The English poet John Keats (1595-1621) said: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and in one of the examples of beautiful things, he mentions:

                        All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

                        An endless fountain of immortal drink,

                        Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.     

 

            Ellen’s poem begins with the lines:

 

                        Beautiful faces are those that wear ---

                        I matters little if dark or fair ---

            Whole-souled honesty printed there.

           

            The complete text of the poem follows:

 

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 prudence girds.

 

Beautiful hands ate those that do

Work that is earnest and brave and truer

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 with daily prayer.

 

Beautiful lives are those that bless__

Silent rivers of happiness,

Whose hidden fountain 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 !

 

                        **********

G.R.Kanwal

25 April 2026