Bohemian Poems, Ancient and Modern/Happiness
HAPPINESS.
OFT doth man in distant regions
Seek the Eden of his life,
Marks not in the war of feeling,
That a May at hand is rife.
Sailor-like, in seas of longing
He pursues a happy doom,
Ignorant, that for him heaven
In the simple cot may bloom.
After lands abroad and kingdoms
Still he passionately strains,
Fate, with him for ever sporting,
Sometimes flatters, sometimes chains.
He, his aim attaind believing,
Rests his brow his palm upon,
Still a weary while awaits him,
Ere his paradise be won.
But he hath no strength remaining,
Powerless he to wander more,
Back he to his country wendeth,
Where he had complain’d before;
And he mourns the staff he lifted,
In the troubled world to go,
For the far-sought bliss he findeth
Near in his own bosom now.