Happiness and Joy

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d— The wild waves whist,— Foot it featly here and there.

Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

To business that we love we rise betime, And go to ’t with delight.

Let’s have one other gaudy night.

Now, our joy, Although our last, not least.

If it were now to die, ’Twere now to be most happy.

I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.

Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o’er the green corn-field did pass, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, That fools should be so deep-contemplative, And I did laugh sans intermission An hour by his dial.

Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i’ the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleas’d with what he gets.

’Tis not the balm, the scepter and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running ’fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread.

He is well paid that is well satisfied.

Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow’s bliss.

Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends.

A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour’s talk withal.

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en; In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not deck’d with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: my crown is call’d content; A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

Let the world slide, 2 let the world go; A fig for care, and a fig for woe! If I can’t pay, why I can owe, And death makes equal the high and low.

But, Lord Crist! whan that it remembreth me Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee, It tikleth me aboute myn herte roote. Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote That I have had my world as in my tyme.