The Land of Content
| The Land of Content by |
| From Poems of Cheer (1910) |
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 byway, 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.
 |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.
The author died in 1919, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. |
