Day 72: On Beauty

A classic choice for a Sunday: Keats. 

What many people don't know about Keats is that he was a really young poet. He died at 26, after completing so many poems and making a significant contribution to the Romantic movement. His everlasting and ever more relevant verse is one reason why I offer him as an example to people who think you have to be old to be a poet. 

He knew a lot about the nature of beauty and despondence and joy, all the staples of the human condition, and was able to write about them beautifully and truthfully and with a wisdom beyond his years - 'yes, in spite of all/ Some shape of beauty moves away the pall/From our dark spirits.'

Here's a poem that can be read and enjoyed many times over. 

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion) - John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.