Poems that capture the elusive nature of happiness.

Joy, how I sought thee!
Silver I spent and gold,
On the pleasures of this world,
In splendid garments clad;
The wine I drank was sweet,
Rich morsels I did eat, 
Oh, but my life was sad!
Joy, how I sought thee!

Joy, I have found thee!
Far from the halls of Mirth,
Back to the soft green earth,
Where people are not many;
I find thee, Joy, in hours
With clouds, and birds, and flowers, 
Thou dost not charge one penny.
Joy, I have found thee!

Seeking Joy

Oh, sweet content, that turns the labourer's sweat
 To tears of joy, and shines the roughest face;
How often have I sought you high and low,
 And found you still in some lone quiet place;

Here, in my room, when full of happy dreams,
 With no life heard beyond that merry sound
Of moths that on my lighted ceiling kiss
 Their shadows as they dance and dance around;

Or in a garden, on a summer's night,
 When I have seen the dark and solemn air
Blink with the blind bats' wings, and heaven's bright face
 Twitch with the stars that shine in thousands there.

Oh, Sweet Content!

Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend, 
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green fields of flowers.

Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk, 
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.

A Greeting

When primroses are out in Spring,
 And small, blue violets come between;
 When merry birds sing on boughs green,
And rills, as soon as born, must sing;

When butterflies will make side-leaps,
 As though escaped from Nature's hand
 Ere perfect quite; and bees will stand
Upon their heads in fragrant deeps;

When small clouds are so silvery white
 Each seems a broken rimmed moon, 
 When such things are, this world too soon,
For me, doth wear the veil of Night.

Days Too Short

If I were gusty April now,
 How I would blow at laughing Rose;
I'd make her ribbons slip their knots,
 And all her hair come loose.

If I were merry April now,
 How I would pelt her cheeks with showers;
I'd make carnations, rich and warm,
 Of her vermilion flowers.

Since she will laugh in April's face,
 No matter how he rains or blows, 
Then O that I wild April were,
 To play with laughing Rose.

Laughing Rose

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!

A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life!

Life

When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:

"Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy.
Lithe as a bending reed
Loving the storm that sways her
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy."

The Answer

"Men know but little more than we,
Who count us least of things terrene,
How happy days are made to be!

"Of such strange tidings what think ye,
O birds in brown that peck and preen?
Men know but little more than we!

"When I was borne from yonder tree
In bonds to them, I hoped to glean
How happy days are made to be,

"And want and wailing turned to glee;
Alas, despite their mighty mien
Men know but little more than we!

"They cannot change the Frost's decree,
They cannot keep the skies serene;
How happy days are made to be

"Eludes great Man's sagacity
No less than ours, O tribes in treen!
Men know but little more than we
How happy days are made to be."

The Caged Thrush Freed And Home Again - (Villanelle)

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

Sonnet XVII: Happy Is England

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.


In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.


Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.

Stanzas: In A Drear-Nighted December

Among all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.

While riding near her home one stormy night
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.

Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,
To bear it with me through the stormy night:
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.

When to the dwelling of my Love I came,
I went into the orchard quietly;
And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name,
Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.

The whole next day, I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;
I led my Lucy to the spot, "Look here,"
Oh! joy it was for her, and joy for me!