Truth and Beauty

By Christopher F. Mills

In May of 1819, the Romantic English poet John Keats composed Ode on a Grecian Urn and anonymously published it in January of the following year. It is one of the ‘Great Odes of 1819’.

The final lines of the poem declare that 'beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'.

The debate since has been whether they add or detract to the total beauty of the poem. In fact, those final lines are the very node of life and poetry; the concatenation of all being and meaning. Every poet who ever lived has sought to link the two together, through verse, life, and being. What poet is worth their salt who has not given their answer and rhyme concerning truth and beauty?

Here is this poets answer, in part.

None are as great as Keats. But all should strive to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher F. Mills
• Release date: May 11, 2018

Christopher F. Mills

Christopher F. Mills--born in Texas under a great bolide on March 3, 1990—is the AKA and autograph, the literary alias, the self-assumed, non-sanctioned appellation—the nom de guerre, rubric of poetry and sign of prose; the modest Storybook signature—the incognito of the cognito—the nom de plume of Imagination’s beautiful thought; the symbol, signet, seal and sobriquet of his father’s genius and his mother’s virtue; the stage and trade title of antiquity’s captive; the epitaph on his lonely grave; the cognomen of his forefathers who art lost to history; the handle he went by among true friend; the name of he-who-was-hostage to memory; it is the frayed tag on his art; it is the pseudonym of nothing false and everything true; it is the pretense and pretensions of a beautiful dream without superficial conceits; it is the poet’s vision despite an ugly world; it is the stylographic title of one who carried, with stoic regard, the weight of Time’s troublous pen. He went into the Imaginary Continuum to uncover the stories, tales and myths by which to inspire a world. What he discovered was they inspired him.

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