Happiness and Joy

For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.

For singing till his heaven fills, ’Tis love of earth that he instills, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which over flows To lift us with him as he goes.

There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, Richness, quietness and pleasure. 4

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.

Have you found your life distasteful? My life did and does smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I’ll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again.

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!

The happiest day—the happiest hour My sear’d and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.

Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvests reaps.

Ever let the fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O, for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication.

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after.

’Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark Bay deep-mouth’d welcome as we draw near home; ’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

I die—but first I have possess’d, And come what may, I have been bless’d.

Did ye not hear it?—No! ’twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

And joyless, if not shared with him!