Beauty by John Masefield Summary

Summary and Analysis

“Beauty,” a poem by the English writer John Masefield (1878-1967), is written in an accessible style and is clearly indebted to the English Romantics in its tone and theme. The poem begins by using balanced phrasing to stress the breadth of the speaker’s knowledge of the natural world. He has seen not only “dawn” but also its opposite, “sunset,” just as he is familiar both with flat “moors” and with “windy hills.” Line 1, then, shows the influence of Romantic poetry in its emphasis on natural change (from “dawn” to “sunset”) and on natural landscapes.

In line 2, the speaker employs a simile and perhaps also personification when he describes the dawn and sunset “Coming in solemn beauty like old tunes of Spain”; consequently, the first two lines emphasize both natural beauty and the beauty of music created by human beings. Lines 3 and 4 develop a metaphor and personification; April is a lady who brings daffodils, "springing grass," and "soft warm April rain." Notice the pattern of progression: Line 1 emphasizes natural beauty; line 2 emphasizes beauty created by humans; and line 3 combines the two emphases by describing April as if it were a woman creating the beauty of spring.

The word “Bringing” that begins line 4 echoes the word “bringing” in line 3. These words, in turn, are echoed by (and internally rhyme with) the adjective “springing” that appears later in line 4. Thus a poem celebrating the beauty of music in the reference to the “slow old tunes of Spain” becomes explicitly musical itself, playing with multiple sound effects that deliberately call attention to themselves. The tone of the opening stanza is sensual, appealing to sight, hearing, and touch; in mentioning daffodils and spring rain, it perhaps also appeals to the sense of smell. The reference to Spain adds an exotic element to the stanza, but otherwise it seems to be a familiar piece of English Romanticism and could just as easily have been written by Wordsworth as by Masefield.

Sound effects are created in the ways already mentioned, but sound techniques also are employed in other instances. The phrase “I have seen” is repeated in lines 1 and 3. The "S" sound alliterates in "seen," "sunset," "solemn," and "Spain." In the phrase...

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