CONTENTMENT IN NATURE

I WOULD not change my joys for those

Of Emperors and Kings.

What has my gentle friend the rose

Told them, if aught, do you suppose —

The rose that tells me things?

What secrets have they had with trees?

What romps with grassy spears?

What know they of the mysteries

Of butterflies and honey-bees,

Who whisper in my ears?

What says the sunbeam unto them?

What tales have brooklets told?

Is there within their diadem

A single rival to the gem

The dewy daisies hold?

What sympathy have they with birds

Whose songs are songs of mine?

Do they e’ er hear, as though in words

’ Twas lisped, the message of the herds

Of grazing, lowing kine?

Ah no! Give me no lofty throne,

But just what Nature yields.

Let me but wander on, alone

If need be, so that all my own

Are woods and dales and fields.