The mean diet, no delicate fare; True wisdom join'd with simpleness; The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress.
The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night: Contented with thine own estate Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.
The Happy Life
OW happy is he born and taught, That serveth not another's will; Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death; Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame, or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise, Nor vice; who never understood How deepest wounds are given by praise; Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed; Whose conscience is his strong retreat; Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make oppressors great:
Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a religious book or friend;
-This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands, And having nothing, yet hath all.
The Happy Warrior
HO is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? -It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright:
-Who, if he rise to station of command, Rises by open means; and there will stand On honourable terms, or else retire, And in himself possess his own desire; Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall, Like showers of manna, if they come at all: Whose powers shed round him in the common strife Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need: —He who, though thus endued as with a sense And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes; Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:- 'Tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high, Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye, Or left unthought-of in obscurity,— Who, with a toward or untoward lot, Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not, Plays, in the many games of life, that one Where what he most doth value must be won: Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray; Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth For ever, and to noble deeds give birth, Or he must fall to sleep without his fame, And leave a dead unprofitable name, Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause: This is the happy Warrior; this is he Whom every man in arms should wish to be.
H righteous doom, that they who make Pleasure their only end,
Ordering the whole life for its sake, Miss that whereto they tend.
While they who bid stern duty lead,
Content to follow, they,
Of duty only taking heed, Find pleasure by the way.
Is Life Worth Living?
S life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year,
And hails us with the cuckoo's song, To show that she is here;
So long as May of April takes,
In smiles and tears, farewell,
And windflowers dapple all the brakes, And primroses the dell;
While children in the woodlands yet Adorn their little laps
With ladysmock and violet,
And daisy-chain their caps; While over orchard daffodils Cloud-shadows float and fleet, And ousel pipes and laverock trills And young lambs buck and bleat; So long as that which bursts the bud And swells and tunes the rill,
Makes springtime in the maiden's blood, Life is worth living still.
Life not worth living! Come with me, Now that, through vanishing veil, Shimmers the dew on lawn and lea, And milk foams in the pail;
Now that June's sweltering sunlight bathes With sweat the striplings lithe,
As fall the long straight scented swathes Over the crescent scythe;
Now that the throstle never stops His self-sufficing strain,
And woodbine-trails festoon the copse And eglantine the lane; Now rustic labour seems as sweet As leisure, and blithe herds Wend homeward with unweary feet, Carolling like the birds;
Now all, except the lover's vow, And nightingale, is still; Here, in the twilight hour, allow, Life is worth living still.
When Summer, lingering half-forlorn, On Autumn loves to lean, And fields of slowly yellowing corn Are girt by woods still green,
When hazel-nuts wax brown and plump,
And apples rosy-red,
And the owlet hoots from hollow stump, And the dormouse makes its bed; When crammed are all the granary floors, And the Hunter's moon is bright,
And life again is sweet indoors,
And logs again alight;
Ay, even when the houseless wind
Waileth through cleft and chink, And in the twilight maids grow kind, And jugs are filled and clink;
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