A Sweeter Life

No bitter tongue, no grief for what is gone,

Shall enter here, where Love with me is staying;

Only from books we'll know what sorrow means,

And keep sad thoughts for when there's music playing.

Give me a simple, sweet, dove-tempered spirit,

That thinks unpleasing Truth must be a lie;

To lose all memory of unfriendly men,

Where all kindness has gone home to die.

From what, think you, comes this exalted state,

That makes life now so rich in joy, and full;

What woman taught me that it needs four hands

To hold her skein and wind a ball of wool?