The poets in the tales they tell
And with their happy powers
Have made lands where their fancies dwell
Seem better lands than ours.
Why need I sigh far hills to see
If grass is their array,
While here the little paths go through
The greenest every day?
Such fancies fill the restless mind,
At once to cheat and cheer
With thought and semblance undefined,
Nowhere and everywhere.
MIDDLE PERIOD 1824-1836
The Stranger
When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.
When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?
Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.
Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow mirth—
And how did earth his worth return?
It spurned him from its lowliest lot,
The meanest station owned him not;
An outcast thrown in sorrow's way,
A fugitive that knew no sin,
Yet in lone places forced to stray—
Men would not take the stranger in.
Yet peace, though much himself he mourned,
Was all to others he returned.