For the face of the farm-lad who came and sat beside me, the handfuls of pease that he offered me—for the taste of their juicy sweet pods;

The pressure of the Earth against me as I lay on it, the light sense riding on it of tremendous forces charioting me onward; for the like sense in my will and actions, of being borne along!

O the splendid wind careering over earth and ocean, the sun darting between the great white clouds! O the lifting of arms to Nature—heaven wrapped around one’s body!

The unflagging pleasure of food, the crisp and toothsome growths of the soil! draughts of running water in summer;

The evenings by the fire in winter, the ease after labor, the steady sleepy heat, the sleepy flicker on the wall, the presence of others in the room; for the voices of children;

For the beautiful faces—and ever more beautiful appearing—of those I meet in the doorway or at meals, the mortal father mother sister brother faces;

For the glorified face of him I love: the long days out alone together in the woods, the nights superb of comradeship and love.

O joy returning morn noon and night! day-long as in a dream walking over earth enchanted, waking deep midnight out of sleep in the ocean of joy! [Lo! the beautiful surface, the rippling of waves, the moon shining down.]

Deep deep draughts of all that life can give, drawn in to feed the flame—

Joy, joy and thanks for ever.

[O burning behind all worlds, immortal Essences, Flames of this ever-consuming universe, never-consumed—to laugh and laugh with you, and of our laughter

Shake forth creation!]

* * * * *

Wonderful! wave after wave; clouds, rain, wind, day and night;

The sea by night in storms, and the morning over the hills, for grief and joy, for solitude and companionship; for the birth of babes and the putting away of the husks of the feeble and aged in the ground;

For the great processions of the seasons over the Earth, and the dead lying below; and the dead rising again in the pure translucent air to begin a new existence, with unutterable joy bursting outwards from them beyond all mortal bounds—

With shouts and pæans into the blue æther of God—

Joy, joy and thanks for ever.

* * * * *

And for the strange individual decree of each one,

The daily hunger and thirst after sympathy, ever-new, for the pleasant putting-forth of affection, and for the excess—for prostrate unspeakable love!

For the pleasant moods of the soul, for the finite masterly enjoyment of the world; and for the painful moods, for the vicious agony and the vast dark after-death of desire—for the transcendent pouring and pouring of the soul out into other worlds!

For the tragic moments of life, and for the long same stretches of the commonplace;

For the wonderful looming rise upon one of the great Arch of Death as one approaches it, for the dim perception of the infinite stretches beyond!

For the final deep abiding sense of rest—in Thee;

For the touch of Thyself growing continually out of everything more actual, starlike, perfect;

And for all experience;

Joy, joy and thanks for ever.