Happiness

'Twas not rare versatility,
    Nor gift of poesy or art,
Nor piquant, sparkling jeux d'esprit
    Which at the call of fancy come,
    That touched the universal heart,
    And won the world's encomium.

It was not beauty's potent charm;
    For admiration followed her
Unmindful of the rounded arm,
    The fair complexion's brilliancy,
    If form and features shapely were
    Or lacked the grace of symmetry.

So not by marked, especial power
    She grew endeared to human thought,
But just because, in trial's hour,
    Was loving service to be done
    Or sympathy and counsel sought,
    She made herself the needed one.

    Oh, great the blessedness must be
    Of heart and hand and brain alert
    In projects wise ...

Our souls should be vessels receiving
The waters of love for relieving
    The sorrows of men.

For here lies the pleasure of living:
In taking God's bounties, and giving
    The gifts back again.

I

Hail, orient Conqueror of gloomy Night!
Thou that canst shed the bliss of gratitude
On hearts howe'er insensible or rude;
Whether thy punctual visitations smite
The haughty towers where monarchs dwell;
Or thou, impartial Sun, with presence bright
Cheer'st the low threshold of the peasant's cell!
Not unrejoiced I see thee climb the sky
In naked splendour, clear from mist or haze,
Or cloud approaching to divert the rays,
Which even in deepest winter testify
Thy power and majesty,
Dazzling the vision that presumes to gaze.
Well does thine aspect usher in this Day;
As aptly suits therewith that modest pace
Submitted to the chains
That bind thee to the path which God ordains
That thou shalt trace,
Till, with the heavens and earth, thou pass a...

    We're at the world's top now.    The hills around
        Stand proud in order with the valleys deep,
    The hills with pastures drest, with tall trees crowned,
        And the low valleys dipt in sunny sleep.
    A sound brims all the country up, a noise
        Of wheels upon the road and labouring bees
    And trodden heather, mixing with the voice
        Of small lost winds that die among the trees.
    And we are prone beneath the flooding sun,
        So drenched, so soaked in the unceasing light,
    That colours, sounds and your close presence are one,
        A texture woven up of all delight,
    Whose shining threads my hands may not undo,
    Yet one thread runs the whole bright garment through.

Gold or silver, every day,
Dies to gray.
There are knots in every skein.
Hours of work and hours of play
Fade away
Into one immense Inane.
Shadow and substance, chaff and grain,
Are as vain
As the foam or as the spray.
Life goes crooning, faint and fain,
One refrain:
'If it could be always May!'

Though the earth be green and gay,
Though, they say,
Man the cup of heaven may drain;
Though, his little world to sway,
He display
Hoard on hoard of pith and brain:
Autumn brings a mist and rain
That constrain

Him and his to know decay,
Where undimmed the lights that wane
Would remain,
If it could be always May.

YEA, alas, must turn to NAY,
Flesh to clay.
Chance and Time are ever twain.
Men may sc...

    Fair one! embodiment of Loveliness!
    Angelic beauty beams upon thy countenance,
    And from its image of Lucretian purity
    Thine inborn virtue shines divinely forth.

    Thy sparkling eyes of bright cerulean blue,
    Rich sapphire gems, flash with Arcadian artlessness,
    Impelling Cupid's arrows, passion-fraught,
    Discharged from bow of myrtle 'gainst my heart,
    Which throbs and flutters, quivering from the thrust.

Down through the ancient Strand
The spirit of October, mild and boon
And sauntering, takes his way
This golden end of afternoon,
As though the corn stood yellow in all the land,
And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon.

Lo! the round sun, half-down the western slope -
Seen as along an unglazed telescope -
Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day:
Gifting the long, lean, lanky street
And its abounding confluences of being
With aspects generous and bland;
Making a thousand harnesses to shine
As with new ore from some enchanted mine,
And every horse's coat so full of sheen
He looks new-tailored, and every 'bus feels clean,
And never a hansom but is worth the feeing;
And every jeweller within the pale
Offers a real Arabian Night for sale;...

Song brings us light with the power of lending
Glory to brighten the work that we find;
Song brings us warmth with the power of rending
Rigor and frost in the swift-melting mind.
Song is eternal with power of blending
Time that is gone and to come in the soul,
Fills it with yearnings that flow without ending,
Seeking that sea where the light-surges roll.

Song brings us union, while gently beguiling
Discord and doubt on its radiant way;
Song brings us union and leads, reconciling
Battle-glad passions by harmony's sway,
Unto the beautiful, valiant, and holy
- Some can pass over its long bridge of light
Higher and higher to visions that solely
Faith can reveal to the spirit's pure sight.

Songs from the past of the past's longings telling,
Pensive...

For truth I may this sentence tell,
No man dies ill, that liveth well.

        Accept, my Prince, the moral fable,
        To youth ingenuous, profitable.
        Nobility, like beauty's youth,
        May seldom hear the voice of truth;
        Or mark and learn the fact betimes
        That flattery is the nurse of crimes.
        Friendship, which seldom nears a throne,
        Is by her voice of censure known.
        To one in your exalted station
        A courtier is a dedication;
        But I dare not to dedicate
        My verse e'en unto royal state.
        My muse is sacred, and must teach
        Truths which they slur in courtly speech.
        But I need not to hide the praise,
        Or veil the thoughts, a nation pays;
        We in your youth and virtues trace
        The dawnings of your royal race;

1

There is a mystic thread of life
So dearly wreath'd with mine alone,
That Destiny's relentless knife
At once must sever both, or none.


2

There is a Form on which these eyes
Have fondly gazed with such delight -
By day, that Form their joy supplies,
And Dreams restore it, through the night.


3

There is a Voice whose tones inspire
Such softened feelings in my breast,    -
I would not hear a Seraph Choir,
Unless that voice could join the rest.


4

There is a Face whose Blushes tell
Affection's tale upon the cheek,
But pallid at our fond farewell,
Proclaims more love than words can speak.


5

There is a Lip, which mine has prest,
But none had ever prest before;...

My dryad hath her hiding place
Among ten thousand trees.
    She flies to cover
    At step of a lover,
And where to find her lovely face
Only the woodland bees
    Ever discover,
Bringing her honey
From meadows sunny,
    Cowslip and clover.

Vainly on beech and oak I knock
Amid the silent boughs;
    Then hear her laughter,
    The moment after,
Making of me her laughing-stock
Within her hidden house.

The young moon with her wand of pearl
Taps on her hidden door,
    Bids her beauty flower
    In that woodland bower,
All white like a mortal girl,
With moonshine hallowed o'er.

Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees
To hide her face from me,
    Not all her fleeing
    Should 'scape my seeing,

The days are long and lonely,
    The weary eve comes on,
And the nights are filled with dreaming
    Of one beloved and gone.

I reach out in the darkness
    And clasp but empty air,
For Rutha dear has vanished -
    I wonder, wonder where.

Yet must it be: her nature
    So lovely, pure, and true;
So nearly like the angels,
    Is she an angel too.

The cottage is dismantled
    Of all that made it bright;
Beyond its silent portal
    No love, nor life, nor light.

Where are the hopes I cherished,
    The joys that once I knew,
The dreams, the aspirations?
    All, all are perished too.

Yes, love's dear chain is broken;
    From shore to shore I roam -
No comfort, no companion,
    No happiness, n...

Desponding Father! mark this altered bough,
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossoms shriveled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call:
In all men, sinful is it to be slow
To hope in Parents, sinful above all.

Let mirth and joy a season reign
    And sorrow flee away
Sadness were perfect sin it is
    My Anne's natal day

And now a birthday rhyme for her
    This sister of my own
Accept the song then for my sake
    Sister and only one

So long we've lived together here
    Our hopes and fears the same
Like two of autumn's last grown leaves
    Last of our race and name

The past we know its grief and joy
    Its pleasure and its pain
But know not what may happen ere
    Your birthday comes again

Shall we be cradled in the deep
    Beneath the briny wave?
Or shall the white deer lightly bound
    Over my forest grave?

Or living yet divided far
    With lands and seas between
And sorrow reigning in the hearts

Sweet Phyllis, leave thy quiet home,
For lo! the ides of April come!
    Then hasten to my bower;
A cask of rich Albanian wine,
In nine years mellowness, is mine,
    To glad the festal hour.

My garden-herbs, in fragrance warm,
Our various chaplets wait to form;
    My tender ivies grow,
That, twining in thy amber hair,
Add jocund spirit to thine air,
    And whiteness to thy brow.

My walls with silver vessels shine;
Chaste vervain decks the modest shrine,
    That longs with crimson stains
To see its foliage sprinkled o'er,
When the devoted Lamb shall pour
    The treasure of his veins.

The household Girls, and menial Boy,
From room to room assiduous fly,
    And busy hands extend;
Our numerous fires are quivering br...

In London I never know what I'd be at,
Enraptured with this, and enchanted with that;
I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan,
And life seems a blessing too happy for man.

But the country, Lord help me! sets all matters right,
So calm and composing from morning to night;
Oh, it settles the spirits when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, a goose on a green!

In town, if it rain, why it damps not our hope,
The eye has her choice, and the fancy her scope;
What harm though it pour whole nights or whole days?
It spoils not our prospects, or stops not our ways.

In the country, what bliss, when it rains in the fields,
To live on the transports that shuttlecock yields;
Or go crawling from window to window, to see
A pig on a dunghill or crow on a tr...

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.