Second Installment(Final) 

Happiness by Amy Lowell - Poem

     Amy Lawrence Lowell was born February 9, 1874. She was an American poet from Brookline Massachusetts. She died on May 12 1925 in Brookline Massachusetts and posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.

      In the poem, Happiness, Lowell revealed how happiness can make people feel comfortable and relaxed. In the first stanza, she compares happiness to elation, empty quietness, also to some, happiness shows no delight or distress. This basically points to the subjectivity of happiness. Happiness can be defined and experienced by different people in different ways.

       In the second paragraph, the poet tries to explain what happiness means for her. She uses a lot of metaphors in her poem. She compares happiness to wine, in the sense that happiness makes you forget your sorrows, sad memories and give you pleasure. Happiness makes the poet feel better, relaxed and comfortable.

       In the concluding part of the poem, the poet says that happiness is rare. It eludes some people. And the fact that happiness is scarce points to why the poet is willing to do anything to get it, because according to the poet, happiness is better than anything there is.

Happiness by Amy Lowell

  Happiness, to some, elation;
Is, to others, mere stagnation.
Days of passive somnolence,
At its wildest, indolence.
Hours of empty quietness,
No delight, and no distress.

Happiness to me is wine,
Effervescent, superfine.
Full of tang and fiery pleasure,
Far too hot to leave me leisure
For a single thought beyond it.
Drunk! Forgetful! This the bond: it
Means to give one's soul to gain
Life's quintessence. Even pain
Pricks to livelier living, then
Wakes the nerves to laugh again,
Rapture's self is three parts sorrow.
Although we must die to-morrow,
Losing every thought but this;
Torn, triumphant, drowned in bliss.

Happiness: We rarely feel it.
I would buy it, beg it, steal it,
Pay in coins of dripping blood
For this one transcendent good. 

Happy Quotes

“The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” – Ashley Montagu

“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”- Stacey Charter

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” – Epictetus

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go” – Oscar Wilde

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”- Herman Cain

“There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” – Anthony De Mello

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”- L.M. Montgomery

“If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.”- Joseph Addison

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”- Groucho Marx

“Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.”
- Unknown