Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
What Is Happiness?
By Joseph Brown Ladd (1764–1786)[Born in Newport, R. I., 1764. Died at Charleston, S. C., 1786. The Poems of Arouet. 1786.]
’T
By imagination made:
’Tis a bubble, straw, or worse
’Tis a baby’s hobby-horse:
’Tis two hundred shillings clear;
’Tis ten thousand pounds a year:
’Tis a title, ’tis a name;
’Tis a puff of empty fame;
Fickle as the breezes blow;
’Tis a lady’s yes or no!
And when the description’s crowned,
’Tis just nowhere to be found.
Arouet shows, I must confess,
Says Delia, what is happiness;
I wish he now would tell us what
This self-same happiness is not.
What happiness is not? I vow,
That, Delia, you have posed me now:
What it is not—stay, let me see—
I think, dear maid, ’tis—not for me.