Joy & wonder

O brave new worldThat has such people in ’t!

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying:And this same flower that smiles to-dayTo-morrow will be dying.

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,Jumping from the chair she sat in;Time, you thief, who love to getSweets into your list, put that in!Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,Say I’m growing old, but add,Jenny kiss’d me.

My heart is like a singing birdWhose nest is in a water’d shoot;My heart is like an apple-treeWhose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;My heart is like a rainbow shellThat paddles in a halcyon sea;My heart is gladder than all these,Because my love is come to me.

My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began;So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,Or let me die!The Child is father of the Man;And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we comeFrom God, who is our home:

Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it’s such an interesting world.

“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”

“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.”

Here to-day, up and off to somewhere else to-morrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that’s always changing!

You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.

Second to the right, and straight on till morning.

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

What a lark! What a plunge!

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,Strong and content I travel the open road.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

There is no frigate like a bookTo take us lands away,Nor any coursers like a pageOf prancing poetry.This traverse may the poorest takeWithout oppress of toll;How frugal is the chariotThat bears a human soul!

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to seaIn a beautiful pea-green boat:They took some honey, and plenty of moneyWrapped up in a five-pound note.The Owl looked up to the stars above,And sang to a small guitar,"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,What a beautiful Pussy you are,You are,You are!What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

They dined on mince and slices of quince,Which they ate with a runcible spoon;And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,They danced by the light of the moon,The moon,The moon,They danced by the light of the moon.

Life has loveliness to sell,All beautiful and splendid things,Blue waves whitened on a cliff,Soaring fire that sways and sings,And children's faces looking upHolding wonder like a cup.

Spend all you have for loveliness,Buy it and never count the cost;For one white singing hour of peaceCount many a year of strife well lost,And for a breath of ecstasyGive all you have been, or could be.

The world is so full of a number of things,I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

It is very nice to thinkThe world is full of meat and drink,With little children saying graceIn every Christian kind of place.

Where did you come from, baby dear?Out of the everywhere into here.

You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then. You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship I worshipped you. In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived. In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages.

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.

‘I have no name;I am but two days old.’What shall I call thee?‘I happy am,Joy is my name.’Sweet joy befall thee!Pretty joy!Sweet joy, but two days old.Sweet joy I call thee:Thou dost smile,I sing the while;Sweet joy befall thee!

Sweet dreams, form a shadeO’er my lovely infant’s head!Sweet dreams of pleasant streamsBy happy, silent, moony beams!Sweet Sleep, with soft downWeave thy brows an infant crown!Sweet Sleep, angel mild,Hover o’er my happy child!Sweet smiles, in the nightHover over my delight!Sweet smiles, mother’s smiles,All the livelong night beguiles.

The sleep that flits on baby's eyes—does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes. The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps—does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning—the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.