Happiness

"What tuneful strains salute mine ear

Without the castle walls?
Oh, let the song re-echo here,

Within our festal halls!"
Thus spake the king, the page out-hied;
The boy return'd; the monarch cried:

"Admit the old man yonder!"

"All hail, ye noble lords to-night!

All hail, ye beauteous dames!
Star placed by star! What heavenly sight!

Whoe'er can tell their names?
Within this glittering hall sublime,
Be closed, mine eyes! 'tis not the time

For me to feast my wonder."

The minstrel straightway closed his eyes,

And woke a thrilling tone;
The knights look'd on in knightly guise,

Fair looks tow'rd earth were thrown.
The monarch, ravish'd by the strain,
Bade them bring forth a golden chain,

    The gleaming head of one fine friend
    Is bent above my little song,
    So through the treasure-pits of Heaven
    In fancy's shoes, I march along.

    I wander, seek and peer and ponder
    In Splendor's last ensnaring lair -
    'Mid burnished harps and burnished crowns
    Where noble chariots gleam and flare:

    Amid the spirit-coins and gems,
    The plates and cups and helms of fire -
    The gorgeous-treasure-pits of Heaven -
    Where angel-misers slake desire!

    O endless treasure-pits of gold
    Where silly angel-men make mirth -
    I think that I am there this hour,
    Though walking in the ways of earth!

I’ve noticed this happen, when everything is black,
When I’m down below zero and cannot get back,
When I feel like a sort of a National Debt,
That will go on for ages and never be met,
When my will is all bagged at the knees and dead beat,
It is then, don’t you know, that., I’m certain to meet
With some prodigal lifeless dejected old bean,
Who is worse off than I you know what I mean.

Someone or other who’s entered the race,
With a sense of intention but can’t stay the pace,
He tells all his troubles and heaven knows what,
Talks about Fate and all that sort of rot,
And it makes all my own little troubles look small,
Till I find I’ve no cause to be worried at all,
And it doesn’t seem cricket to grouse when I’ve seen,
That he’s worse off than I you know what I ...

Glee! The great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, --
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, "But the forty?
Did they come back no more?"

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller's eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.

How much of my young heart, O Spain,
    Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain,
And summoned back to life again
The Paladins of Charlemagne
The Cid Campeador!

And shapes more shadowy than these,
    In the dim twilight half revealed;
Phoenician galleys on the seas,
The Roman camps like hives of bees,
The Goth uplifting from his knees
    Pelayo on his shield.

It was these memories perchance,
    From annals of remotest eld,
That lent the colors of romance
To every trivial circumstance,
And changed the form and countenance
    Of all that I beheld.

Old towns, whose history lies hid
    In monkish chronicle or rhyme,
Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid,
Zamora and Valladolid,
Toledo, ...

In the long, bright summer, dear to bird and bee,
When the woods are standing in liveries green and gay,
Merry little voices sound from every tree,
And they whisper secrets all the day.

If we knew the language, we should hear strange things;
Mrs. Chirry, Mrs. Flurry, deep in private chat.
"How are all your nestlings, dear? Do they use their wings?
What was that sad tale about a cat?"

"Where is your new cottage?" "Hush! I pray you, hush".
Please speak very softly, dear, and make no noise.
It is on the lowest bough of the lilac bush.
And I am so dreadfully afraid of boys.

"Mr. Chirry chose the spot, without consulting me;
Such a very public place, and insecure for it,
I can scarcely sleep at night for nervousness; but he
Says I am a silly thing and ...

    I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
    Saying:    "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait."
    Saying:    "I bring you my fair Law of Peace
    And from your withering passion full release;
    Release from that white hand that stabbed you so.
    The road is calling.    With the wind you go,
    Forgetting her imperious disdain -
    Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."

    "Excellent Lord, I come.    But first," I said,
    "Grant that I bring her these twelve roses red.
    Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf mouth,
    And then indeed I go in bitter drouth
    To that far valley where your river flows
    In Peace, that once I found in every rose."

Sequestered in their calm domestic bower,
    They sat together.    He in manhood's prime
And she a matron in her fullest flower.
    The mantel clock gave forth a warning chime.
She put her work aside; his bright cigar
    Grew pale, and crumbled in an ashen heap.
The lights went out, save one remaining star
    That watched beside the children in their sleep.
She hummed a little song and nestled near,
    As side by side they went to their repose.
His arm about her waist, he whispered "Dear,"
    And pressed his lips upon her mouth's full rose -
The sacred sweetness of their wedded life
    Breathed in that kiss of husband and of wife.

The slender snail clings to the leaf,
Gray on its silvered underside;
And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with brief
Bright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,
Her warm hands berry-dyed,
Comes down the tanned Noontide.

The pungent fragrance of the mint
And pennyroyal drench her gown,
That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tint
Among the thorns, and everywhere the glint
Of gold and white and brown
Her flowery steps waft down.

The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,
Along her way try their wild best
To reach the jewel whose hot hue was drained
From some rich rose that all the June contained
The butterfly, soft pressed
Upon her sunny breast.

Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,
She hangs upon the hillside br...

I have been thinking of the victims bound
In Naples, dying for the lack of air
And sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain,
Where hope is not, and innocence in vain
Appeals against the torture and the chain!
Unfortunates! whose crime it was to share
Our common love of freedom, and to dare,
In its behalf, Rome's harlot triple-crowned,
And her base pander, the most hateful thing
Who upon Christian or on Pagan ground
Makes vile the old heroic name of king.
O God most merciful! Father just and kind!
Whom man hath bound let thy right hand unbind.
Or, if thy purposes of good behind
Their ills lie hidden, let the sufferers find
Strong consolations; leave them not to doubt
Thy providential care, nor yet without
The hope which all thy attributes inspire,

Sad man, Sad man, tell me, pray,
What did you see to-day?

I saw the unloved and unhappy old, waiting for slow delinquent death to come.
Pale little children toiling for the rich, in rooms where sunlight is ashamed to go.
The awful alms-house, where the living dead rot slowly in their hideous open graves.
And there were shameful things;
Soldiers and forts, and industries of death, and devil ships, and loud-winged devil birds,
All bent on slaughter and destruction.    These and yet more shameful things mine eyes beheld.
Old men upon lascivious conquest bent, and young men living with no thought of God;
And half clothed women puffing at a weed, aping the vices of the underworld -
Engrossed in shallow pleasures and intent on being barren wives.
These things I saw.
(How God must...

Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Are all th' Aonian springs
Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings?
Or droop they as disgrac'd,
To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd?

If hence thy silence be,
As 'tis too just a cause,
Let this thought quicken thee:
Minds that are great and free
Should not on fortune pause;
'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry
Be taken with false baits
Of worded balladry,
And think it poesy?
They die with their conceits,
And only pi...

    "I would not have," he said,
"Tears, nor the black pall, nor the wormy grave,
Grief's hideous panoply I would not have
    Round me when I am dead.


    "Music and flowers and light,
And choric dances to guitar and flute,
Be these around me when my lips are mute,
    Mine eyes are sealed from sight.


    "So let me lie one day,
One long, eternal day, in sunshine bathed,
In cerements of silken tissue swathed,
    Smothered 'neath flowers of May.

    "One perfect day of peace,
Or ere clean flame consume my fleshly veil,
My life - a gilded vapor - shall exhale,
    Brief as a sigh - and cease.


    "But ere the torch be laid
To my unshrinking limbs by some true hand,
Athwart the orange-fragrant laughing land,

        September came and with it frost
        The season's pasture it seemed lost,
        And the wondrous yield of corn
        Of its green beauty it was shorn.

        Frost it came like early robber,
        But gentle rains came in October,
        Which were absorbed by grateful soil;
        With green once more the pastures smile.

        And cows again are happy seen
        Enjoying of the pastures green,
        And flow of milk again they yield
        From the sweet feed of grassy field.

        And we have now a fine November,
        Warmer far than in September;
        The apple, which is queen of fruits,
        Was a good crop and so is roots.

        The rains they did replenish springs,
        And it grati...

Oh, children of the tropics,
    Amid our pain and wrong
Have you no other mission
    Than music, dance, and song?

When through the weary ages
    Our dripping tears still fall,
Is this a time to dally
    With pleasure's silken thrall?

Go, muffle all your viols;
    As heroes learn to stand,
With faith in God's great justice
    Nerve every heart and hand.

Dream not of ease nor pleasure,
    Nor honor, wealth, nor fame,
Till from the dust you've lifted
    Our long-dishonored name;

And crowned that name with glory
    By deeds of holy worth,
To shine with light emblazoned,
    The noblest name on earth.

Count life a dismal failure,
    Unblessing and unblest,
That seeks 'mid ease inglorious
   ...

I am no priest of crooks nor creeds,
For human wants and human needs
Are more to me than prophets' deeds;
And human tears and human cares
Affect me more than human prayers.

Go, cease your wail, lugubrious saint!
You fret high Heaven with your plaint.
Is this the "Christian's joy" you paint?
Is this the Christian's boasted bliss?
Avails your faith no more than this?

Take up your arms, come out with me,
Let Heav'n alone; humanity
Needs more and Heaven less from thee.
With pity for mankind look 'round;
Help them to rise--and Heaven is found.

    Ye dear stars of the Bear, I did not think
    I should again be turning, as I used,
    To see you over father's garden shine,
    And from the windows talk with you again
    Of this old house, where as a child I dwelt,
    And where I saw the end of all my joys.
    What charming images, what fables, once,
    The sight of you created in my thought,
    And of the lights that bear you company!
    Silent upon the verdant clod I sat,
    My evening thus consuming, as I gazed
    Upon the heavens, and listened to the chant
    Of frogs that in the distant marshes croaked;
    While o'er the hedges, ditches, fire-flies roamed,
    And the green avenues and cypresses
    In yonder grove were murmuring to the wind;
    While in the house were heard, at inter...

How blest thy creature is, O God,
When, with a single eye,
He views the lustre of thy word,
The dayspring from on high!


Through all the storms that veil the skies,
And frown on earthly things,
The Sun of Righteousness he eyes,
With healing on his wings.


Struck by that light, the human heart,
A barren soil no more,
Sends the sweet smell of grace abroad,
Where serpents lurk’d before.[1]


The soul a dreary province once
Of Satan’s dark domain,
Feels a new empire form’d within,
And owns a heavenly reign.


The glorious orb, whose golden beams
The fruitful year control,
Since first, obedient to thy word,
He started from the goal;


Has cheer’d the nations with the joys
His or...