Classic Poem

O I have made for myself one whole happy day!
Grief did not steal a morsel of it away.
I shut all the doors of my soul to pain—
He came and knocked at my doors in vain.
And tears, I flung them down in the deep
Sea where I lulled my sorrow to sleep.
And my sighs, I turned them to doves, all my sighs,
With gray breasts and dreaming eyes.
For I said, “I will be mistress of one perfect hour;
I will have peace and I will have power;
And I will let the hawks of my fancy fly
And measure the distances in my soul's sky.
And I will give my heart room—
O I will give my heart room
In which to bloom.”
All of an ecstasy in one gray cell,
(Where all of a grief has been wont to dwell),
All of a joy, all of a bliss,
And I—I created this!

I made it out of a dim dawn light,
That lapped me and laved me and drowned pursuing night;
I made it out of a slanting ray
That touched to pearl my prison gray;
I built it out of a distant bell,
Out of a young nun's song at the well;
I fashioned it out of a swaying curtain,
Teased by the mischievous toe of a certain
Rollicsome, frolicsome Zephyr I know—
He pays me visits when the South winds blow.
(He and his sisters are the wee clowns of joy,
Droll little wind-maids and droll little boy!)

I made it out of Beauty's self. She Appeared to me.
O I gathered all that Beauty gives,
For Beauty lives, O Beauty lives!
'T was she in her glorious heart gave birth
To this new creature—Mirth.

Mirth, O Mirth, you too are young,
But of you no gray songs will ever be sung.
Teach me, O teach me in this my one day,
How a forbidden heart may be gay.
Let us set sail for far coasts in ships
Of merriment. Let me learn of your lips
Laughter again. Laughter I had almost forgot,
And it should be freight of our fanciful yacht!
And have you quaint avenues named of men Glee?
How far on those avenues will you take me?
And have you a sister and is her name Song?
What price would she give for my silver tongue?

Teach me how small a thing is the earth,
Teach me how trivial a toy it is, Mirth.
And then could you teach me to tether you fast?
“Nay, I'd escape on your own breath at last.”

All of an ecstasy, all of a mirth,
In a gray cell had their bright birth.
All of an ecstasy—lived but a day
All of its life. . . . In cells 't is the way.