The periodic pleasure of
Small Happenings is upon us:²
Oh Happiness, our being’s end and aim—
Good, pleasure, ease, content—whate’er thy name!³
Happiness is a like a Crystal: fair, exquisite,
Clear—Broken in a million pieces,
Shattered, scattered far & near—⁴
When has joy ever required much
Evidence to start its leaf-green Breathing?⁵
A specific, constant, clear-sky, unrelated-to-anything, never-shifting,
Nameless and changeless Perfection of our own Happiness.⁶
If all the Griefs I am to have would only come Today—
I am so Happy I believe they’d Laugh & run away!⁷
One who knows is not equal to one who Loves—
One who loves is not equal to one who takes Joy.⁸
Happiness has to do with Reason, and only reason earns it—
What we’ve been given, we can’t earn and can’t keep, and
Often don’t even recognize at the time—I mean Joy.⁹
Joy is the Efflux of the Soul¹⁰
¹ Friedrich von Schiller, Ode to Joy
² Meena Alexander, Darling Coffee
³ Alexander Pope, Epistle IVs
⁴ Eliza Cook, Where There’s a Will There’s a Way
⁵ Mary Oliver, The Truro Bear
⁶ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
⁷ Emily Dickinson, If All the Griefs
⁸ Confucius tr. Edward Slingerland, Analects 6.20
⁹ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
¹⁰ Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road