Happiness and Joy

Awake To Smile

When I blink sunshine in my eyes
And hail the amber morn,
Before the rosy dew-drop dries
With sparkle on the thorn;
When boughs with robin rapture ring,
And bees hum in the may,--
Then call me young, with heart of Spring,
Though I be grey.

But when no more I know the joy
And urgence of that hour,
As like a happy-hearted boy
I leap to land aflower;
When gusto I no longer feel,
To rouse with glad hooray,--
Then call me old and let me steal
From men away.

Let me awaken with a smile
And go to garden glee,
For there is such a little while
Of living left to me;
But when star-wist I frail away,
Lord, let the hope beguile
That to Ecstatic Light I may
Awake to smile.

At The Golden Pig

Where once with lads I scoffed my beer
The landlord's lass I've wed.
Now I am lord and master here;-Thank
God! the old man's dead.
I stand behind a blooming bar
With belly like a tub,
And pals say, seeing my cigar:
'Bill's wed a pub.'

I wonder now if I did well,

My freedom for to lose;
Knowing my wife is fly as hell
I mind my 'Ps' and 'Qs'.


Oh what a fuss she made because
I tweaked the barmaid's bub:
Alas! a sorry day it was
I wed a pub.

Fat landlord of the Golden Pig,
They call me 'mister' now;
And many a mug of beer I swig,
Yet don't get gay, somehow.

So farmer fellows, lean and clean
Who sweat to earn your grub,
Although you haven't got a bean:

Don't wed a pub.

A Song Of Sixty-Five

Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time,
I'd tune my pipes before the fire and merrily I'd strive
To praise that age when prose again has given way to rhyme,
The Indian Summer days of life when I'll be Sixty-five;


For then my work will all be done, my voyaging be past,
And I'll have earned the right to rest where folding hills are green;
So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast, --
Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene.
The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire,
And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see;
For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . .
Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come to me.


I'll take my breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten,
When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song;
I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then
I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong.
And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two,
And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive;
I'll do the things I never yet have found the time to do. . . .
Oh, won't I be the busy man when I am Sixty-five.


I'll revel in my library; I'll read De Morgan's books;
I'll grow so garrulous I fear you'll write me down a bore;
I'll watch the ways of ants and bees in quiet sunny nooks,
I'll understand Creation as I never did before.
When gossips round the tea-cups talk I'll listen to it all;
On smiling days some kindly friend will take me for a drive:
I'll own a shaggy collie dog that dashes to my call:
I'll celebrate my second youth when I am Sixty-five.


Ah, though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain,
A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap;
I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five.

A Rolling Stone

There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
My golden youth I'm squandering,
Sun-libertine am I;
A-wandering, a-wandering,
Until the day I die.


I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man,
And I roomed in the cool of a cave;
I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span,
The fret and the sweat of a slave:
For far over all that folks hold worth,
There lives and there leaps in me
A love of the lowly things of earth,
And a passion to be free.

To pitch my tent with no prosy plan,
To range and to change at will;
To mock at the mastership of man,
To seek Adventure's thrill.
Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;
To go my own sweet way;
To reck not at all what may befall,
But to live and to love each day.

To make my body a temple pure
Wherein I dwell serene;
To care for the things that shall endure,
The simple, sweet and clean.
To oust out envy and hate and rage,
To breathe with no alarm;
For Nature shall be my anchorage,
And none shall do me harm.

To shun all lures that debauch the soul,
The orgied rites of the rich;
To eat my crust as a rover must
With the rough-neck down in the ditch.
To trudge by his side whate'er betide;
To share his fire at night;
To call him friend to the long trail-end,
And to read his heart aright.

To scorn all strife, and to view all life
With the curious eyes of a child;
From the plangent sea to the prairie,
From the slum to the heart of the Wild.
From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand,
From the vast to the greatly small;
For I know that the whole for good is planned,


And I want to see it all.

To see it all, the wide world-way,
From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;
With never a one to say me nay,
And none to cramp my soul.
In belly-pinch I will pay the price,
But God! let me be free;
For once I know in the long ago,
They made a slave of me.

In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,
Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Oh, I love each day as a rover may,
Nor seek to understand.
To enjoy is good enough for me;

The gipsy of God am I;
Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn!
And here's a cheer to the night that's gone!
And may I go a-roaming on

Until the day I die!

Then every star shall sing to me
Its song of liberty;
And every morn shall bring to me
Its mandate to be free.
In every throbbing vein of me
I'll feel the vast Earth-call;
O body, heart and brain of me
Praise Him who made it all!

A Lyric Day

I deem that there are lyric days
So ripe with radiance and cheer,
So rich with gratitude and praise
That they enrapture all the year.
And if there is a God b\above,
(As they would tell me in the Kirk,)
How he must look with pride and love
Upon his perfect handiwork!


To-day has been a lyric day
I hope I shall remember long,
Of meadow dance and roundelay,
Of woodland glee, of glow and song.
Such joy I saw in maidens eyes,
In mother gaze such tender bliss . . .
How earth would rival paradise
If every day could be like this!


Why die, say I? Let us live on
In lyric world of song and shine,
With ecstasy from dawn to dawn,
Until we greet the dawn Devine.
For I believe, with star and sun,
With peak and plain, with sea and sod,
Inextricably we are one,
Bound in the Wholeness - God.

The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

The Hayloft
Through all the pleasant meadow-side
The grass grew shoulder-high,
Till the shining scythes went far and wide
And cut it down to dry.
Those green and sweetly smelling crops
They led the waggons home;
And they piled them here in mountain tops
For mountaineers to roam.
Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail,
Mount Eagle and Mount High;--
The mice that in these mountains dwell,
No happier are than I!
Oh, what a joy to clamber there,
Oh, what a place for play,
With the sweet, the dim, the dusty air,
The happy hills of hay!

Night and Day
When the golden day is done,
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, Flower and sun,
Vanish all things mortal.
As the blinding shadows fall
As the rays diminish,
Under evening's cloak they all
Roll away and vanish.
Garden darkened, daisy shut,
Child in bed, they slumber--
Glow-worm in the hallway rut,
Mice among the lumber.
In the darkness houses shine,
Parents move the candles;
Till on all the night divine
Turns the bedroom handles.
Till at last the day begins
In the east a-breaking,
In the hedges and the whins
Sleeping birds a-waking.
In the darkness shapes of things,
Houses, trees and hedges,
Clearer grow; and sparrow's wings
Beat on window ledges.
These shall wake the yawning maid;
She the door shall open--
Finding dew on garden glade
And the morning broken.
There my garden grows again
Green and rosy painted,
As at eve behind the pane
From my eyes it fainted.
Just as it was shut away,
Toy-like, in the even,
Here I see it glow with day
Under glowing heaven.
Every path and every plot,
Every blush of roses,
Every blue forget-me-not
Where the dew reposes,
"Up!" they cry, "the day is come
On the smiling valleys:


We have beat the morning drum;
Playmate, join your allies!"

My Ship and I
O it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond;
And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;
But when I'm a little older, I shall find the secret out
How to send my vessel sailing on beyond.
For I mean to grow a little as the dolly at the helm,
And the dolly I intend to come alive;
And with him beside to help me, it's a-sailing I shall go,
It's a-sailing on the water, when the jolly breezes blow
And the vessel goes a dive-dive-dive.
O it's then you'll see me sailing through the rushes and the reeds,
And you'll hear the water singing at the prow;
For beside the dolly sailor, I'm to voyage and explore,
To land upon the island where no dolly was before,
And to fire the penny cannon in the bow.

Happy Thought
The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Fairy Bread
Come up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy ready to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children ,you may dine
On the golden smell of broom
And the shade of pine;
And when you have eaten well,
Fairy stories hear and tell.

De M. Antonio
NOW Antoninus, in a smiling age,
Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage.
The rounded days and the safe years he sees,
Nor fears death's water mounting round his knees.
To him remembering not one day is sad,
Not one but that its memory makes him glad.
So good men lengthen life; and to recall
The past is to have twice enjoyed it all.

Before This Little Gift Was Come
BEFORE this little gift was come
The little owner had made haste for home;
And from the door of where the eternal dwell,
Looked back on human things and smiled farewell.
O may this grief remain the only one!
O may our house be still a garrison
Of smiling children, and for evermore
The tune of little feet be heard along the floor!

Away With Funeral Music
AWAY with funeral music - set
The pipe to powerful lips -
The cup of life's for him that drinks
And not for him that sips.

A Good Play
We built a ship upon the stairs
All made of the back-bedroom chairs,
And filled it full of soft pillows
To go a-sailing on the billows.
We took a saw and several nails,
And water in the nursery pails;
And Tom said, "Let us also take
An apple and a slice of cake;"--
Which was enough for Tom and me
To go a-sailing on, till tea.
We sailed along for days and days,
And had the very best of plays;
But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,
So there was no one left but me.

A Good Boy
I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.
And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood,
And I am very happy, for I know that I've been good.
My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair,
And I must be off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.
I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.
But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.

Scotch Drink
Let other poets raise a fracas
Bout vines, and wines, an drucken Bacchus,
An crabbit names an stories wrack us,
An grate our lug:
I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us,
In glass or Jug.
O thou, my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink!
Whether thro' wimplin worms thou jink,
Or, richly brown, ream owre the brink,
In glorious faem
Inspire me, till I lisp an wink,
To sing thy name!
Let husky wheat the haughs adorn,
An aits set up their awnie horn,
An Pease and beans, at e'en or morn,
Perfume the plain:
Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn,
Thou king o' grain!
On thee aft Scotland chows her cood,
In souple scones, the wale o' food!
Or tumbling in the boiling flood
Wi' kail an beef;
But when thou pours thy strong heart's blood
There thou shines chief.
Food fills the wame, an keeps us livin;
Tho life's a gift no worth receivin
When heavy-dragg'd wi pine an grievin;
But oil'd by thee
The wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin,
Wi' rattlin glee.
Thou clears the head o' doited Lear,
Thou cheers the heart o' drooping Care;
Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair,
At 's weary toil;
Thou ev'n brightens dark Despair
Wi' gloomy smile.
Aft, clad in massy siller weed,
Wi gentles thou erscts thy head;
Yet humbly kind in time o' need,
The poor man's wine:
His wee drap parritch, or his bread,
Thou kitchens fine.
Thou art the life o' public haunts;
But thee, what were our fairs and rants?
Ev'n godly meetings o' the saunts,


By thee inspir'd,
When, gaping, they besiege the tents,
Are doubly fir'd.
That merry night we get the corn in,
O sweetly, then, thou reams the horn
Or reekin on a New-Year mornin
In cog or bicker,
An just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in,
An gusty sucker!
When Vulcan gies his bellows breath,
An ploughmen gather wi their graith,
O rare! to see thee fizz an freath
I' th' lugget caup!
Then Burnewin comes on like death
At every chaup.
Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel:
The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel,
Brings hard owrehip, wi sturdy wheel,
The strong forehammer,
Till block an studdie ring an reel,
Wi dinsome clamour.
When skirlin' weanies see the light,
Thou maks the gossips clatter bright,
How fumblin coofs their dearies slight;
Wae worth the name!
Nae howdie gets a social night,
Or plack frae them.
When neebors anger at a plea,
An just as wud as wud can be,
How easy can the barley-brie
Cement the quarrel!
It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee,
To taste the barrel.
Alake! that e'er my Muse has reason,
To wyte her countrymen wi' treason!
But monie daily weet their weason
Wi' liquors nice,
An hardly, in a winter season,
E'er spier her price.
Wae worth that brandy, burnin trash!
Fell source o' monie a pain an brash!
Twins monie a poor, doylt, drucken hash
O' half his days;
An sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash
To her warst faes.


Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well!
Ye chief, to you my tale I tell,
Poor, plackless devils like mysel!
It sets you ill
Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell,
Or foreign gill.
May gravels round his blather wrench,
An gouts torment him, inch by inch,
Wha twists his gruntle wi' a glunch
O' sour disdain
Out owre a glass o' whisky-punch
Wi honest men!
O Whisky! soul o' plays an pranks!
Accept a Bardie's gratefu thanks!
When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks
Are my poor verses!
Thou comes---they rattle i' their ranks,
At ither's arses!
Thee, Ferintosh! O sadly lost!
Scotland lament frae coast to coast!
Now colic grips, an barkin hoast
May kill us a';
For loyal Eorbes' charter'd boast
Is taen awa!
They curst horse-leeches o' th' Excise,
Wha mak the whisky stells their prize!
Haud up thy han', Deil! ance, twice, thrice!
There, seize the blinkers!
An bake them up in brunstane pies
For poor damn'd drinkers.
Fortune! if thou'll but gie me still
Hale breeks, a scone, an whisky gill,
An rowth o' rhyme to rave at will,
Tak a' the rest,
An deal't about as thy blind skill
Directs thee best.

Birks Of Aberfeldie, The
Now simmer blinks on flow'ry braes,
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays,
Come, let us spend the lightsome days
In the birks of Aberfeldie!
Bonnie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go,
Bonnie lassie, will ye go
To the birks of Aberfeldie?
The little birdies blithely sing,
While o'er their heads the hazels hing;
Or lightly flit on wanton wing
In the birks of Aberfeldie!
Bonnie lassie, will ye go...
The braes ascend like lofty wa's,
The foaming stream, deep-roaring, fa's,
O'er-hung wi' fragrant spreading shaws,
The birks of Aberfeldie.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go...
The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers,
White o'er the linns the burnie pours,
And, rising, weets wi' misty showers
The birks of Aberfeldie.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go...
Let Fortune's gifts at random flee,
They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me,
Supremely blest wi' love and thee
In the birks of Aberfeldie.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go...

A Bottle And Friend
There's nane that's blest of human kind,
But the cheerful and the gay, man,
Fal, la, la, &c.
Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?
Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.

The Gardener XLIV: Reverend Sir, Forgive

Reverend sir, forgive this pair of
sinners. Spring winds to-day are
blowing in wild eddies, driving dust
and dead leaves away, and with them
your lessons are all lost.

Do not say, father, that life is a
vanity.

For we have made truce with death
for once, and only for a few fragrant
hours we two have been made immortal.

Even if the king's army came and
fiercely fell upon us we should sadly
shake our heads and say, Brothers,
you are disturbing us. If you must
have this noisy game, go and clatter
your arms elsewhere. Since only for
a few fleeting moments we have been
made immortal.

If friendly people came and flocked
around us, we should humbly bow to
them and say, This extravagant good
fortune is an embarrassment to us.
Room is scarce in the infinite sky
where we dwell. For in the springtime
flowers come in crowds, and the
busy wings of bees jostle each other.
Our little heaven, where dwell only
we two immortals, is too absurdly
narrow.

The Gardener LXXVI: The Fair Was On

The fair was on before the temple.
It had rained from the early morning
and the day came to its end.

Brighter than all the gladness of
the crowd was the bright smile of
a girl who bought for a farthing a
whistle of palm leaf.

The shrill joy of that whistle floated
above all laughter and noise.

An endless throng of people came
and jostled together. The road was
muddy, the river in flood, the field
under water in ceaseless rain.

Greater than all the troubles of
the crowd was a little boy's trouble-he
had not a farthing to buy a painted
stick.

His wistful eyes gazing at the shop
made this whole meeting of men so
pitiful.

Superior


Mother, your baby is silly! She is so absurdly childish!

She does not know the difference between the lights in the
streets and the stars.

When we play at eating with pebbles, she thinks they are real
food, and tries to put them into her mouth.

When I open a book before her and ask her to learn her a, b,
c, she tears the leaves with her hands and roars for joy at
nothing; this is your baby's way of doing her lesson.

When I shake my head at her in anger and scold her and call
her naughty, she laughs and thinks it great fun.

Everybody knows that father is away, but if in play I call
aloud "Father," she looks about her in excitement and thinks that
father is near.

When I hold my class with the donkeys that our washer man
brings to carry away the clothes and I warn her that I am the
schoolmaster, she will scream for no reason and call me dada.

Your baby wants to catch the moon. She is so funny; she calls
Ganesh Ganush.

Mother, your baby is silly! She is so absurdly childish!

Senses


Deliverance is not for me in renunciation.
I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.


Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various
colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim.


My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame
and place them before the altar of thy temple.


No, I will never shut the doors of my senses.
The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.


Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination of joy,
and all my desires ripen into fruits of love.

Playthings


Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the

morning.

I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.

I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.

Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning
with!"

Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.

I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.

With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my
strength over things I never can obtain.

In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am
playing a game.