THE LAND OF CONTENT.

I set out for the Land of Content,

By the gay crowded pleasure-highway,

With laughter, and jesting, I went

With the mirth-loving throng for a day;

Then I knew I had wandered astray,

For I met returned pilgrims, belated,

Who said, “We are weary and sated,

But we found not the Land of Content.”

I turned to the steep path of fame,

I said, “It is over yon height —

This land with the beautiful name —

Ambition will lend me its light.”

But I paused in my journey ere night,

For the way grew so lonely and troubled;

I said — my anxiety doubled —

“This is not the road to Content.”

Then I joined the great rabble and throng

That frequents the moneyed world's mart;

But the greed, and the grasping and wrong,

Left me only one wish — to depart.

And sickened, and saddened at heart,

I hurried away from the gateway,

For my soul and my spirit said straightway,

“This is not the road to Content.”

Then weary in body and brain,

An overgrown path I detected,

And I said “I will hide with my pain

In this by-way, unused and neglected.”

Lo! it led to the realm God selected

To crown with his best gifts of beauty,

And through the dark pathway of duty

I came to the land of Content.