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Home  »  The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Sarah Flower Adams (1805–1848)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Hymns. VI. “O pleasant life!”

Sarah Flower Adams (1805–1848)

(Paraphrased from the Spanish of Luis de Leon)

O PLEASANT life!

Whene’er the soul can win her way

From out the world’s dark strife;

And fly to depths fair-haunted

By spirits who have panted

To quit earth’s shadows for immortal day—

O pleasant life!

O happy breast!

Nor care of courts, nor pride of birth,

Can ruffle thy smooth rest;

No scene of gilded riot

Disturbs thy star-lit quiet

Nor dims thy dream of heaven with mists of earth.

O happy breast!

O blessèd soul!

What care hast thou that flatt’ring fame

Thy daily acts enroll?

No breath of hers it tasketh,

Thy life-long deed but asketh

One smile of Truth to light thy passing name—

O blessèd soul!