Beauty, Beholder's Pleasure Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

If superficial, shallow and skin deep,
Beauty, as beauty buffs might well say, lies
But in a beholder's regarding eyes,
But can it from a shallow surface leap?
It's known to glow and gleam from deep within,
Emanating from holder's feeling heart,
And a thing seldom is of visual art,
A child of heart, beauty's more felt than seen.

Fine, fine but how many Helens you think
You give to me, be they from head or heart?
Well as a beholder let me not blink,
‘With Helens' filled your every square-inch part,
‘Yet, Helens seldom be your sole measure,
‘You're a beholder's heart-full of pleasure'.
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Millihelens1: As beauty is often graded— 1000 of them making one Helen, the unit of Helen being fashioned after Helen of Troy believed to be the most stirring beauty ever to have walked on this globe. In the octave of this sonnet, a husband talks about what beauty is. In the sestet the lady wants to know what he thinks about her beauty, and there is a political answer.
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Sonnets | 04.02.08 |