| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917. |
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| 302. A Song of Happiness |
| | | By Ernest Rhys |
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| AH, Happiness: | |
| Who called you “Earandel”? | |
| (Winter-star, I think, that is); | |
| And who can tell the lovely curve | |
| By which you seem to come, then swerve | 5 |
| Before you reach the middle-earth? | |
| And who is there can hold your wing, | |
| Or bind you in your mirth, | |
| Or win you with a least caress, | |
| Or tear, or kiss, or anything— | 10 |
| Insensate Happiness? | |
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| Once I thought to have you | |
| Fast there in a child: | |
| All her heart she gave you, | |
| Yet you would not stay. | 15 |
| Cruel, and careless, | |
| Not half reconciled, | |
| Pain you cannot bear; | |
| When her yellow hair | |
| Lay matted, every tress; | 20 |
| When those looks of hers, | |
| Were no longer hers, | |
| You went: in a day | |
| She wept you all away. | |
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| Once I thought to give | 25 |
| You, plighted, holily— | |
| No more fugitive, | |
| Returning like the sea: | |
| But they that share so well | |
| Heaven must portion Hell | 30 |
| In their copartnery: | |
| Care, ill fate, ill health, | |
| Came we know not how | |
| And broke our commonwealth. | |
| Neither has you now. | 35 |
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| Some wait you on the road, | |
| Some in an open door | |
| Look for the face you showed | |
| Once there—no more. | |
| You never wear the dress | 40 |
| You danced in yesterday; | |
| Yet, seeming gone, you stay, | |
| And come at no man’s call: | |
| Yet, laid for burial, | |
| You lift up from the dead | 45 |
| Your laughing, spangled head. | |
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| Yes, once I did pursue | |
| You, unpursuable; | |
| Loved, longed for, hoped for you— | |
| Blue-eyed and morning brow’d. | 50 |
| Ah, lovely Happiness! | |
| Now that I know you well, | |
| I dare not speak aloud | |
| Your fond name in a crowd; | |
| Nor conjure you by night, | 55 |
| Nor pray at morning-light, | |
| Nor count at all on you: | |
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| But, at a stroke, a breath, | |
| After the fear of death, | |
| Or bent beneath a load; | 60 |
| Yes, ragged in the dress, | |
| And houseless on the road, | |
| I might surprise you there. | |
| Yes: who of us shall say | |
| When you will come, or where? | 65 |
| Ask children at their play, | |
| The leaves upon the tree, | |
| The ships upon the sea, | |
| Or old men who survived, | |
| And lived, and loved, and wived. | 70 |
| Ask sorrow to confess | |
| Your sweet improvidence, | |
| And prodigal expense | |
| And cold economy, | |
| Ah, lovely Happiness! | 75 |
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