Happiness

[C. K. loquitur.]



I dreamed I was in fair Niphon.
Amid tea-fields I journeyed on,
Reclined in my jinrikishaw;
Across the rolling plains I saw
The lordly Fusi-yama rise,
His blue cone lost in bluer skies.

At last I bade my bearers stop
Before what seemed a china-shop.
I roused myself and entered in.
A fearful joy, like some sweet sin,
Pierced through my bosom as I gazed,
Entranced, transported, and amazed.

For all the house was but one room,
And in its clear and grateful gloom,
Filled with all odours strange and strong
That to the wondrous East belong,
I saw above, around, below,
A sight to make the warm heart glow,
And leave the eager soul no lack, -
An endless wealth of bric-a-brac.

I saw bronze sta...

    Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
        Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
        I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
    I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
    The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
        And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
        But last year's bitter loving must remain
    Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

    There are a hundred places where I fear
        To go,--so with his memory they brim!
    And entering with relief some quiet place
    Where never fell his foot or shone his face
    I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
        And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Among the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little Wren's
In snugness may compare.

No door the tenement requires,
And seldom needs a laboured roof;
Yet is it to the fiercest sun
Impervious, and storm-proof.

So warm, so beautiful withal,
In perfect fitness for its aim,
That to the Kind by special grace
Their instinct surely came.

And when for their abodes they seek
An opportune recess,
The hermit has no finer eye
For shadowy quietness.

These find, 'mid ivied abbey-walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are pent-housed by a brae
That overhangs a brook.

There to the brooding bird her mate
Warbles by fits his low clear song;
And by the busy streamlet bo...

Mist clogs the sunshine.
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejection
Weighs down my soul.
Yet, while I languish,
Everywhere countless
Prospects unroll themselves,
And countless beings
Pass countless moods.
Far hence, in Asia,
On the smooth convent-roofs,
On the gilt terraces,
Of holy Lassa,
Bright shines the sun.
Grey time-worn marbles
Hold the pure Muses;
In their cool gallery,
By yellow Tiber,
They still look fair.
Strange unloved uproar
Shrills round their portal;
Yet not on Helicon
Kept they more cloudless
Their noble calm.
Through sun-proof alleys
In a lone, sand-hemm'd
City of Africa,
A blind, led beggar,
Age-bow'd, asks alms.
No bolder robber
Erst abode ambush'd...

    How well my heart remembers
    Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away, -
    The joy that was November's.

    Her voice to laughter moving,
    So merrily reproving, -
We wandered through the autumn woods,
    And neither thought of loving.

    The hills with light were glowing,
    The waves in joy were flowing, -
It was not to the clouded sun
    The day's delight was owing.

    Though through the brown leaves straying,
    Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;
We knew not Love was with us there,
    No look nor tone betraying.

    How unbelief still misses
    The best of being's blisses!
Our parting saw the first and last
    Of love's imagined kisses.

    Now 'mid these scenes the dr...

- Carmina possumus
Donare, et pretium dicere muneri.
Non incisa notis marmora publicis,
Per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis
Post mortem ducibus
- clarius indicant
Laudes, quam - Pierides; neque,
Si chartae sileant quod bene feceris,
Mercedem tuleris. HOR. Car. 8, Lib. 4.

I

When the soft hand of sleep had closed the latch
On the tired household of corporeal sense,
And Fancy, keeping unreluctant watch,
Was free her choicest favours to dispense;
I saw, in wondrous perspective displayed,
A landscape more august than happiest skill
Of pencil ever clothed with light and shade;
An intermingled pomp of vale and hill,
City, and naval stream, suburban grove,
And stately forest where the wild deer rove;
Nor wanted lurking hamlet, dusky t...

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring’s unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year’s friends together.

One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to Thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment:
A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy...

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish,
    A fond desire which floats before our eyes;
With lurid aberration, feverish,--
    We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies;
Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees,
Hope still pursues and soothes realities.

Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste,
    Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair
Of gushing fountains which he may not taste,
    Of streamlets cool depicted on the air;
With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds,
But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.

In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell,
    The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat,
And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell
    Responsive to each movement of his feet;
Yet through his grated window, he discerns
The star...

Beloved! your hair was golden
As tender tints of sunrise,
As corn beside the River
    In softly varying hues.
I loved you for your slightness,
Your melancholy sweetness,
Your changeful eyes, that promised
    What your lips would still refuse.

You came to me, and loved me,
Were mine upon the River,
The azure water saw us
    And the blue transparent sky;
The Lotus flowers knew it,
Our happiness together,
While life was only River,
    Only love, and you and I.

Love wakened on the River,
To sounds of running water,
With silver Stars for witness
    And reflected Stars for light;
Awakened to existence,
With ripples for first music
And sunlight on the River
    For earliest sense of sight.

Love grew upon ...

Ov whooalsum food aw get mi fill, -
Ov drink aw seldom want a gill;
Aw've clooas to shield me free throo harm,
Should winds be cold or th' sun be warm.

Aw rarely have a sickly spell, -
Mi appetite aw'm fain to tell
Ne'er plays noa scurvy tricks on me,
Nowt ivver seems to disagree.

Aw've wark, as mich as aw can do, -
Sometimes aw laik a day or two, -
Mi wage is nobbut small, but yet,
Aw manage to keep aght o' debt.

Mi wife, God bless her! ivvery neet
Has slippers warmin for mi feet;
An th' hearthstun cleean, an th' drinkin laid,
An th' teah's brew'd an th' tooast is made.

An th' childer weshed, an fairly dressed,
Wi' health an happiness are blest;
An th' youngest, tho' aw say't misen,
Is th' grandest babby ivver seen.

Beatrice, immortalized by "altissimo poeta ... cotanto amante;" Laura, celebrated by a great though an inferior bard, - have alike paid the exceptional penalty of exceptional honor, and have come down to us resplendent with charms, but (at least, to my apprehension) scant of attractiveness.

These heroines of world-wide fame were preceded by a bevy of unnamed ladies "donne innominate" sung by a school of less conspicuous poets; and in that land and that period which gave simultaneous birth to Catholics, to Albigenses, and to Troubadours, one can imagine many a lady as sharing her lover's poetic aptitude, while the barrier between them might be one held sacred by both, yet not such as to render mutual love incompatible with mutual honor.

Had such a lady spoken for herself, the portrait left us might have appeared more ...

The world is so full of a number of Mice
I'm sure that we all should be happy and nice.

Has then, the Paphian Queen at length prevail'd?
Has the sly little Archer, whom my Friend
Once would despise, with all his boyish wiles,
Now taken ample vengeance, made thee feel
His piercing shaft, and taught thy heart profane
With sacred awe, repentant, to confess
The Son of Venus is indeed a God?
I greet his triumph; for he has but claim'd
His own; the breast that was by Nature form'd
And destined for his temple Love has claim'd.

The great, creating Parent, when she breathed
Into thine earthly frame the breath of life,
Indulgently conferr'd on thee a soul
Of finer essence, capable to trace,
To feel, admire, and love, the fair, the good,
Wherever found, through all her various works.
And is not Woman, then, her fairest work,
Fairest, and oft her ...

Sauntering the pavement, or riding the country by-road--lo! such faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;
The spiritual, prescient face--the always welcome, common, benevolent face,
The face of the singing of music--the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad at the back-top;
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows--the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens;
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face;
The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome detested or despised face;
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children;
The face of an amour, the face of veneration;
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock;
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face;
A ...

    Now spring comes round again
    With blossom on the tree,
    Dark blossom of the peach,
    Light blossom of the pear
    And amorous birds complain
    And nesting birds prepare
    And love's keen fingers reach
    After the heart of me.

    But now the blackthorn blows
    About the dusty lane
    And new buds peep and peer,
    I have no joy at all,
    For love draws near its close
    And love's white blossoms fall
    And in the springing year
    Love's fingers bring me pain.

I.

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
    Bring autumn's pleasant weather;
The moor-cock springs, on whirring wings,
    Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
    Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night
    To muse upon my charmer.

II.

The partridge loves the fruitful fells;
    The plover loves the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells;
    The soaring hern the fountains;
Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves
    The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush,
    The spreading thorn the linnet.

III.

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
    The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
 ...

Since shed or cottage I have none,
I sing the more, that thou hast one;
To whose glad threshold, and free door
I may a Poet come, though poor;
And eat with thee a savoury bit,
Paying but common thanks for it.
Yet should I chance, my Wicks, to see
An over-leaven look in thee,
To sour the bread, and turn the beer
To an exalted vinegar;
Or should'st thou prize me as a dish
Of thrice-boil'd worts, or third-day's fish,
I'd rather hungry go and come
Than to thy house be burdensome;
Yet, in my depth of grief, I'd be
One that should drop his beads for thee.

Melpomine put on thy mourning Gaberdine,
And set thy song vnto the dolefull Base,
And with thy sable vayle shadow thy face,
        with weeping verse,
        attend his hearse,
Whose blessed soule the heauens doe now enshrine.

Come Nymphs and with your Rebecks ring his knell,
Warble forth your wamenting harmony,
And at his drery fatall obsequie,
        with Cypres bowes,
        maske your fayre Browes,
And beat your breasts to chyme his burying peale.

Thy birth-day was to all our ioye, the euen,
And on thy death this dolefull song we sing,
Sweet Child of Pan, and the Castalian spring,
        vnto our endless mone,
        from vs why art thou gone,
To fill vp that sweete Angels quier in heauen.

O whylome thou thy lasses dearest...