Happiness

"Who would himself with shadows entertain,
Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain,
Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true?
Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned
Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwell
In the large empire of the possible,
This workday life with iron chains may bind,
Yet thus the mastery o'er ourselves we find,
And solemn duty to our acts decreed,
Meets us thus tutored in the hour of need,
With a more sober and submissive mind!
How front necessity yet bid thy youth
Shun the mild rule of life's calm sovereign, truth."

So speakest thou, friend, how stronger far than I;
As from experience that sure port serene
Thou lookest; and straight, a coldness wraps the sky,
The summer glory withers from the scen...

    Glad winters on the olden farm!
        How raptures from those early times
        Commingle into fairy chimes
    Which gently banish cries of harm!
        My fainting soul finds rest the whiles
    Within the arms of memory,
    And tender scenes of boyish glee
        Transform my sorrows into smiles.

    How brightly beamed the pleasures then,
        When frigid fingers came to throw
        A wintry winding sheet of snow
    Around the silent homes of men!
    But happiness found no alarm,
        For safe with cheer, secure with love,
        She gladly grew and sweetly throve
    Through winters on the olden farm.

    With merry bells and busy sleighs,
        That sung and flew o'er icy vales
        And climbed the hills a...

We walk on starry fields of white
    And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
    We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
    To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
    Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
    Upon our thought and feeling.
They hang about us all the day,
    Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
    We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives
    And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year
    But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
    To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
    Who love and labo...

In Spring,
        While softly cooed
                                The Dove,

Sam
        Told Selina of
                                His Love.


The Summer Moon smiled on them both,
Selina plighted him her Troth.

But Autumn brought a gayer Swain--
Selina broke it off again.


'Tis Winter now--
                    Selina's slack--
She'd give her thumbs to have him back.

Yet--
        When they met
                She tossed her head;

He
        Stared at her and
                            Cut her dead!


But Fate at last to them was kind:
    It sent
                a
                    Roaring,
                                Raging
                           ...

Ireland is now our royal care,
We lately fix'd our viceroy there.
How near was she to be undone,
Till pious love inspired her son!
What cannot our vicegerent do,
As poet and as patriot too?
Let his success our subjects sway,
Our inspirations to obey,
And follow where he leads the way:
Then study to correct your taste;
Nor beaten paths be longer traced.
    No simile shall be begun,
With rising or with setting sun;
And let the secret head of Nile
Be ever banish'd from your isle.
    When wretched lovers live on air,
I beg you'll the chameleon spare;
And when you'd make a hero grander,
Forget he's like a salamander.[1]
    No son of mine shall dare to say,
Aurora usher'd in the day,
Or ever name the milky-way.
You all agree, I make ...

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space sphere of unnumber'd spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech the senses the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all,
In the satisfac...

After The Manner Of Horace.



Friend, there be they on whom mishap
Or never or so rarely comes,
That, when they think thereof, they snap
Derisive thumbs:

And there be they who lightly lose
Their all, yet feel no aching void;
Should aught annoy them, they refuse
To be annoy'd:

And fain would I be e'en as these!
Life is with such all beer and skittles;
They are not difficult to please
About their victuals:

The trout, the grouse, the early pea,
By such, if there, are freely taken;
If not, they munch with equal glee
Their bit of bacon:

And when they wax a little gay
And chaff the public after luncheon,
If they're confronted with a stray
Policeman's truncheon,

They gaze thereat with outstretch'd...

THE POET SINGS TO HER POET

O poet of the time to be,
    My conqueror, I began for thee.
Enter into thy poet's pain,
    And take the riches of the rain,
And make the perfect year for me.

Thou unto whom my lyre shall fall,
Whene'er thou comest, hear my call.
    O, keep the promise of my lays,
    Take the sweet parable of my days;
I trust thee with the aim of all.

And if thy thoughts unfold from me,
Know that I too have hints of thee,
    Dim hopes that come across my mind
    In the rare days of warmer wind,
And tones of summer in the sea.

And I have set thy paths, I guide
Thy blossoms on the wild hillside.
    And I, thy bygone poet, share
    The flowers that throng thy feet where
I led thy feet before I died.

From all the jails the boys and girls
Ecstatically leap, --
Beloved, only afternoon
That prison doesn't keep.

They storm the earth and stun the air,
A mob of solid bliss.
Alas! that frowns could lie in wait
For such a foe as this!

On Her Recent Publication--Practical Piety.


June 1811.

Epistle

Hail! hallow'd sister! of a saintly band!
Whose hearts in homage to their God expand!
Who, by the kind Urania taught to sing.
See palms celestial in their culture spring;
And, while devotion wafts them to the skies,
Teach weaker mortals on their wings to rise!
Hannah! whom truth, with a parental smile,
Ranks with her favorites of our letter'd isle;
Thou in wide fields, by tribes of learning fill'd,
By folly vainly view'd, by wisdom till'd;
Where grain and weed arise in mingled birth,
To nourish, or oppress, the race of earth;
Well hast thou ply'd thy task of virtuous toil,
And reap'd distinction's tributary spoil:
Long has thy country, with a fond acclaim,
J...

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest Rose
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quiteness)
A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and look'd
With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz'd round again,
And sigh'd, and said, it was a Blesséd Place.
And we were bless'd. Oft with patient...

Along the avenue I pass
    Huge piles of wood and stone,
And glance at each amorphous mass,
Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass,
    With half resentful groan.

Say I: "O labor, to despoil
    Some lovely forest scene,
Or at the granite stratum toil,
And desecrate whole roods of soil,
    Is vandal-like and mean!

"Than ever to disfigure thus
    Our prairie garden-land,
Let me consort with Cerberus,
Be chained to crags precipitous,
    Or seek an alien strand."

But while this pining, pouting Muse
    The interval ignores,
Deft industry, no time to lose,
Contrives and carries, hoists and hews,
    And symmetry restores.

Behold! of rock and pile and board
    A modern miracle,
My neighbor's dwelling, ...

Oft have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,
Fragments of far-off melodies,
With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul.
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;
Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.
What need, then, of these finished Strains?
Away with counterfeit Remains!
An abbey in its lone recess,
A temple of the wilderness,
Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.
Spirit of Ossian! if imbound
In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (entrusted to the pen
Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to...

Introduction To A Collection Of Poems By different Authors

An usher standing at the door
I show my white rosette;
A smile of welcome, nothing more,
Will pay my trifling debt;
Why should I bid you idly wait
Like lovers at the swinging gate?

Can I forget the wedding guest?
The veteran of the sea?
In vain the listener smites his breast, -
"There was a ship," cries he!
Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale,
He needs must listen to the tale.

He sees the gilded throng within,
The sparkling goblets gleam,
The music and the merry din
Through every window stream,
But there he shivers in the cold
Till all the crazy dream is told.

Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye
That held his captive still
To hold my silent prisone...

The search for beauty is the search for God
Who is All Beauty.    He who seeks shall find.
And all along the paths my feet have trod,
I have sought hungrily with heart and mind,
    And open eyes for beauty, everywhere.
    Lo! I have found the world is very fair.
The search for beauty is the search for God.

Beauty was first revealed to me by stars,
    Before I saw it in my mother's eyes,
Or, seeing, sensed it beauty, I was stirred
To awe and wonder by those orbs of light
    All palpitant against empurpled skies.
They spoke a language to my childish heart
Of mystery and splendour, and of space,
Friendly with gracious, unseen presences.
Beauty was first revealed to me by stars.

Sunsets enlarged the meaning of the word.
    There was a window ...

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song:
Indoors and out, summer and winter,--Mirth.

Child, when they say that others
Have been or are like you,
Babes fit to be your brothers,
Sweet human drops of dew,
Bright fruit of mortal mothers,
What should one say or do?

We know the thought is treason,
We feel the dream absurd;
A claim rebuked of reason,
That withers at a word:
For never shone the season
That bore so blithe a bird.

Some smiles may seem as merry,
Some glances gleam as wise,
From lips as like a cherry
And scarce less gracious eyes;
Eyes browner than a berry,
Lips red as morning’s rise.

But never yet rang laughter
So sweet in gladdened ears
Through wall and floor and rafter
As all this household hears
And rings response thereafter
Till cloudiest weather clears.

When those your ...

We build with strength the deep tower-wall
    That shall be shattered thus and thus.
And fair and great are court and hall,
    But how fair--this is not for us,
Who know the lack that lurks in all.

We know, we know how all too bright
    The hues are that our painting wears,
And how the marble gleams too white;--
    We speak in unknown tongues, the years
Interpret everything aright,

And crown with weeds our pride of towers,
    And warm our marble through with sun,
And break our pavements through with flowers,
    With an Amen when all is done,
Knowing these perfect things of ours.

O days, we ponder, left alone,
    Like children in their lonely hour,
And in our secrets keep your own,
    As seeds the colour of the flower....