About the poet - John Keats was a British poet. Although he was trained to be surgeon Keats decided to devote himself wholly to poetry.

The Theme of the poem:

• Any beautiful object is always treasured in our mind because it provides us eternal and everlasting joy. The happiness that a beautiful object provides never fades into nothingness but multiples manifold whenever it returns to our mind. In the poem, the poet says that a thing of beauty is a joy forever a joy even in the midst of disease, sufferings, and disappointments of life. The object of beauty makes a lasting impression on us and gives us joy even when they are not present before our eyes. The joy that they give never fades into nothingness, but increases whenever they flash across our minds.

“A thing of beauty…….quiet breat” (lines 1− 5)

WORD MEANINGS:

       i. Bower: a pleasant shady place under trees

• According to the poet, a beautiful thing is a source of eternal joy and its loveliness only grows with time and never goes away. 
• He says that this loveliness will never pass into nothingness and will provide us a cool, pleasant shady place which will give us good health, sound sleep, and mental peace.

“Therefore……..our dark spirits” (lines 6 – 12)

WORD MEANINGS:

    i.  Sprouting:  producing, growing

    ii. Boon: blessing

   iii. Green world: forest

   iv. Covert:  an area of thick low bushes and trees where animals can hide

   v.  Rills: small streams

   vi. Brake: a thick mass of bushes

• The next few lines tell us some of the beautiful things on Earth.
• The examples cited by the poet are such: the sun, the moon, trees that are old or young sprout to make a green covering which becomes a shelter for a simple sheep and provide cool shelter to sleep, the daffodils enclosed in green leaves and the clear rill or the streams with clear water make a cooling shelter for themselves against the hot season.

“Rich with………..heaven’s brink” (lines 19−24)

WORD MEANINGS:

i.   Sprinkling: scattering

ii. Blooms: a flower, especially one cultivated for its beauty

iii. Grandeur: impressiveness

iv. Immortal: living forever, never dying or decaying

v. Brink: extreme edge

• The fragrance of the musk blooms along with all the objects of beauty that nature provides us lift the human spirit filling it with joy and delight.
• Along with these, the wonderful tales of the legendary heroes who lived and died heroically are some things that inspire us with their beauty.
• These beautiful things are the part of the endless fountain of immortal drink that is pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink directly.
• Meaning that these beautiful things bring eternal joy for the soul’s grandeur, they are everlasting and a gift from heaven to us.