Eudaemon
O happiness, I know not what far seas,Blue hills and deep, thy sunny realms surround,That thus in Music’s wistful harmoniesAnd concert of sweet soundA rumor steals, from some uncertain shore,Of lovely things outworn or gladness yet in store:
Whether thy beams be pitiful and come,Across the sundering of vanished years,From childhood and the happy fields of home,Like eyes instinct with tearsFelt through green brakes of hedge and apple-boughRound haunts delightful once, desert and silent now;
Or yet if prescience of unrealized loveStartle the breast with each melodious air,And gifts that gentle hands are donors ofStill wait intact somewhere,Furled up all golden in a perfumed placeWithin the folded petals of forthcoming days.
Only forever, in the old unrestOf winds and waters and the varying year,A litany from islands of the blessedAnswers, Not here … not here!And over the wide world that wandering cryShall lead my searching heart unsoothed until I die.