The Cumaean sibyl offered Tarquin the Proud nine books for what seemed an exorbitant sum. He refused. She burned three of the books, and placed the same price on the six as on the original nine. Again he refused. She burned three more books, and offered the remainder for the sum she first named. This time Tarquin accepted. The books were found to contain prophecies and invaluable directions regarding Roman policy, but alas, they were no longer complete. So it is with joy. To take it now is to get it in its entirety. To defer until some other occasion is to get less of it—at the same cost.
Today, whatever may annoy,
The word for it is Joy, just simple joy:
The joy of life;
The joy of children and of wife;
The joy of bright blue skies;
The joy of rain; the glad surprise
Of twinkling stars that shine at night;
The joy of winged things upon their flight;
The joy of noonday, and the tried,
True joyousness of eventide;
The joy of labor and of mirth;
The joy of air, and sea, and earth—
The countless joys that ever flow from Him
Whose vast beneficence doth dim
The lustrous light of day,
And lavish gifts divine upon our way.
Whatever there be of Sorrow
I'll put off till To-morrow,
And when To-morrow comes, why, then
'Twill be To-day, and Joy again!
John Kendrick Bangs.
From "The Atlantic Monthly."
ENVOI
Franklin K. Lane stipulated that when he died his body should be cremated and the ashes scattered from El Capitan over the beautiful Yosemite Valley. He thus symbolized what many of us feel—the unity of our deeper and finer selves with the eternal life and loveliness of nature.
Oh seek me not within a tomb;
Thou shalt not find me in the clay!
I pierce a little wall of gloom
To mingle with the Day!
I brothered with the things that pass,
Poor giddy Joy and puckered Grief;
I go to brother with the Grass
And with the sunning Leaf.
Not Death can sheathe me in a shroud;
A joy-sword whetted keen with pain,
I join the armies of the Cloud
The Lightning and the Rain.
Oh subtle in the sap athrill,
Athletic in the glad uplift,
A portion of the Cosmic Will,
I pierce the planet-drift.