Classic Poem

Well , when the moon and stars were new
The richest king of all took up
A rose, and shook a drop of dew
Into a rather precious cup
Worth—shall I say a world or two?

“Take this,” that richest king began
To tell his prettiest page, “my boy,
And find the owner as you can.
Follow the wind. I wish you joy.”
The inscription read: “The Happiest Man.”

The prettiest page went here and there.
His silken suits did fade with rain,
Sea-mist uncurled his lovely hair;
He questioned torrid stars in vain;—
The Cup grew heavier in his care.

At last a dim, weird hut he found;
The ice flashed sharp on every thorn;
The lost leaves made a withering sound;
Grim shadows crouched in rocks forlorn;
No blossom breathed for miles around.

Through one low window one low light
Showed two poor graves a step apart:
One prisoned safely, out of sight,
A boy who broke his mother's heart;
One sheltered her from snow and night.

A man not old, but gray and thin,
Half starved, half frozen, dying slow,
In whose deep eyes the tears had been
Too often—and too long ago—
Moaned him a welcome from within.

“This world that, somehow, seems to be
A wretched place, holds none, I know,
So wretched on the whole as he:
Therefore I'll leave my Cup and go;”
So thought the prettiest page, you see.

The stranger sighed: “Why leave it here?
Go take it to the Happiest Man.”
“Oh, you are he. I'll make it clear,”
The prettiest page replied: “I can.
For you are—the most wretched, sir.

“Hunger and cold and loneliness,
And something more, are in your looks,
Some sorrow words could not confess.
These things (as I have read in books),
Make people happy, sir, I guess.”

“They have not made me happy.
Am made of dust and not of ink.
Youth, love, and gold enough to buy
Him bread, the man must have, I think,
Whose wine shall flush your Cup. Good-by.”

Back to the richest king, I say,
The prettiest page went sad with doubt.
It was the royal wedding day:
Soldiers and priests came glittering out.
He stood and watched the fountains play.

He dreamed awake, while many a band
With bridal marches charmed the air:
And still the Cup was in his hand.
The young, sweet queen, who saw it there,
Wondered thereat, I understand.

The prettiest page here hung his head—
“Alack, what was my travel worth?
I've had—a wild-goose chase,” he said;
“There is no Happiest Man on earth.
I rather think he must be dead.”

“‘To the Happiest Man,’” so read the queen,
Then blushed and blushed like anything;
(She was a bride, that's all I mean.)
“Pray take it to my lord, the king;
He'll drink from it to-day, I ween.”

The prettiest page stared with surprise—
“Madam, my lord, the king, you know,
Has golden hair and splendid eyes,
And vales of bloom and cliffs of snow,
And nightingales and butterflies.

“He, if our gray-beard seers speak true,
Was born beneath the kindliest star
In all the heavens. (I guess they knew.)
Leisure and pleasure, peace and war,
He has, and, Madam, he has—you.

“Therefore he's wretched (for these things
Make people happy), on my word.
No one has headache like these kings,
Or heartaches like these queens, I've heard.”
. . . . There, listen how that blue-bird sings!

Why did he shake the drop of dew
Out of the rose? Oh, you may guess;
I never read his “Reasons” through,
For this quaint action, I confess.
Who had the Cup? Well—guess that, too.