Emily Dickinson

Beauty Be Not Caused It Is

poem 516

Beauty Be Not Caused It Is - meaning Summary

Beauty Resists Pursuit

The poem argues that beauty cannot be produced by force. If you chase beauty, it disappears; if you do not pursue it, it remains. Dickinson uses a simple pastoral image — a wind running its fingers through a meadow — to suggest that beauty endures when left to natural care or a higher power. The tone is didactic but calm, advising restraint and trust rather than active seeking. The final lines imply that divine or natural agency preserves beauty when observers refrain from interfering.

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Beauty be not caused It Is Chase it, and it ceases Chase it not, and it abides Overtake the Creases In the Meadow when the Wind Runs his fingers thro’ it Deity will see to it That You never do it

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