Beauty: [Notes for an unfinished poem]
Wilfred Owen 1893 (Oswestry) – 1918 (Sambre–Oise Canal)
The beautiful, the fair, the elegant,
Is that which pleases us, says Kant,
Without a thought of interest or advantage.
I used to watch men when they spoke of beauty
And measure their enthusiasm. One
An old man, seeing a ( ) setting sun,
Praised it ( ) a certain sense of duty
To the calm evening and his time of life.
I know another man that never says a Beauty
But of a horse; ( )
Men seldom speak of beauty, beauty as such,
Not even lovers think about it much.
Women of course consider it for hours
In mirrors; ( )
A shrapnel ball -
Just where the wet skin glistened when he swam -
Like a fully-opened sea-anemone.
We both said 'What a beauty! What a beauty, lad'
I knew that in that flower he saw a hope
Of living on, and seeing again the roses of his home.
Beauty is that which pleases and delights,
Not bringing personal advantage - Kant.
But later on I heard
A canker worked into that crimson flower
And that he sank with it
And laid it with the anemones off Dover.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 70 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAX BCCBXBX DDEE XXXXXXXAXFXF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 954 |
Words | 193 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 7, 4, 12 |
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"Beauty: [Notes for an unfinished poem]" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 17 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/38499/beauty:-[notes-for-an-unfinished-poem]>.
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