I love all Beauteous Things - By Robert Bridges

I love all Beauteous Things

By Robert Bridges

I love all beauteous things,

I seek and adore them;

God hath no better praise,

And man in his hasty days

Is honoured for them.

I too will something make

And joy in the making;

Altho’ to-morrow it seem

Like the empty words of a dream

Remembered on waking.

           Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was Britain's poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. He was a doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is the author of many well-known hymns. 

          Beauty naturally inspires our love, and such beauty is not abstract. We can find beauty in statue, vase, or a painting that captures something seen a thousand times, a tree, a glass of water, an empty tree and many more which is there for so many years but we can find beauty if we look close enough. Beauty is all around, but Bridges reminds us that we still have to seek it out. Our eyes know it, keep it safe, but for Bridges it reaches to God. 

Analysis: 

            This poem talks about extreme contradiction that a human being possesses, on one hand we as human seek pleasure but on other hand we remain distant due to our materialistic way of looking at the world. We as humans became rational that we lack imagination which is primary. 

            The first stanza is a reflection of what we call turning an eye against nature, because of our busy and sometimes pseudo busy schedule. The poet says that man have forgotten to live life, instead what they are doing is passing life.  

 

And man in his hasty days

Is honoured for them.

           Poet is so much against of those people who have lost their creativity because of extreme rationality. Creating something according to poet gives immense satisfaction, and further added that one should not study his/her thought before practicing it, the joy is not in result but it is in making or we can say in creating. The joy of creating is always in the process and not in the product. Failure is only an outcome and most of the times temporary. One should not have a fear of failure. He further adds that comparison of creativity is not possible and correct.

           At the end, poet wishes that any beauty is to be admired and more importantly one should find time to admire and appreciate every small bit of experience, which is worth, because it is always about the quality as per the person who witnesses it. Nature is a gift from God, for men, which is least taken care by us and it is a matter of rare privilege that we are gifted life as human, who can both appreciate and create beauty.

  
           The poet has used personification and simile in the poem to express his thoughts by figures of speech. The rhyming scheme is a - b - c - c - b.