Beauty (Owen)

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.