The initial, and most frequently excerpted, stanzas of Endymion introduce a central theme of the poem (which features in much of Keats’s work overall): the importance of beauty. Beauty is what inspires the speaker, usually considered Keats himself, to retell the Greek myth of Endymion in heroic couplets (pairs of side-by-side rhyming lines). The famous opening line, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” (Line 1), empowers beautiful things. The entire first stanza sets out how things, both natural—like the moon—and crafted by humans—like stories—can bring lasting joy. Early in the first stanza, beauty is compared to a “bower” (Line 4), foreshadowing where much of the poem takes place: an island bower. There, the titular Endymion and his sister Peona will discuss the beauty of the moon, among other things.

The following stanzas also introduce imagery that is repeated throughout the poem. In the second stanza, Keats associates the joy that beauty brings with light: “the moon / The passion poesy, glories infinite / Haunt us till they become a cheering light” (Lines 28-30). Light imagery and symbolism runs throughout the poem, characterizing beauty as divine and associated with truth.