Slow Joy

The joy that dances, dazzling azure where it springs,

Dies quickly, without quarrel,

Stilled and startled into silence

By the daily round of little deaths

Of which, though dying, it does not dream.

But from that stillness stealing,

There comes a kind unkilled by care,

A joy which does not jump, whose light, softened by sorrow,

Stays longer, holds fast, not fading, though darkness drowns it deep,

And which is not resigned, but radiant with true beauty

When once risen from its baptism of grief.

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