Real Joy

From the Richmond Times Dispatch, May 15, 1915.

There are lots of simple pleasures,
    Caught in nature’s ebb and flow,
That will multiply life’s treasures,
    If your heart’s attuned to know;
There is one joymaker granted
    Quite the sweetest ever found—
When the green things you have planted
    Show their heads above the ground.

There are sunsets, limned with glories
    By the Master Artist’s brush,
And at morn the soft love stories
    Of the mocking bird and thrush.
There are streams that seem enchanted,
    There are beauties all around—
And just now the hopes you’ve planted
    Spring in rapture from the ground.