Happiness

  

As long as you can chase happiness,

you are not ready to be happy,

even if you owned everything.

As long as you lament a loss,

run after prizes in restless races,

you have not yet known peace.

But when you have moved beyond desire,

become a stranger to your goals and longings

and call no longer on happiness by name,

then your heart rises calmly

above the ebb and flow of action

and peace has reached your soul.

By: Hermann Hesse

Stages

 All blossoms will wilt,

each youth fold into the mold of age.

Wisdom and virtue never last forever.

Your heart must always be ready to leave

and ready to begin again,

must form new bonds

with courage and without regret.

Every beginning offers a magic power

that protects us and helps us to endure.

This journey through the realms of life

was not meant to end in one home only.

World spirit does not want to tie us down,

wants us to soar into the open.

When we stay too long in one place,

get stuck in norm and habit, we wear out.

Only embarking on new, unknown journeys

can free us from the prison of stagnation.

Maybe the moment of our death too

is just another gate to new dimensions.

The call of life to us will never end.

Well, then, my heart, take leave and heal.

By: Hermann Hesse

One Perfect Rose

 

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;

Deep hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet

One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;

My fragile leaves, it said, his heart enclose.

Love long has taken for his amulet

One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet

One perfect limousine, do you suppose?

Ah no, it's always just my luck to get 

One perfect rose.

By: Dorothy Parker

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave

They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the jobs on my list

And enjoyed them and had some time over.

I love you. I'm glad I exist.

What Would My Life Mean?

What would my life mean, if it ended today?

Was it wasted, adrift in dreams? No, it was a circle

of inner joys I gathered to me with both hands

and passed on and received again and again.

It was a union of passion with the earth,

whose fervor drenched happiness on me

and always furthered my goals

with glowing gestures toward eternal life.

It was a lifelong brotherly union with water,

with the winds blowing through mountains and fields,

a covenant with the clouds crossing the blue sky.

These brothers invoked for me the hymns of home.

I belonged to these great, eternal elements

who served me as my family.

My crime in all these years was

that I loved them more than people.

By: Hermann Hesse

Oh, When I was In Love

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.

I Loved You

I loved you; even now I may confess,

Some embers of my love their fire retain;

But do not let it cause you more distress,

I do not want to sadden you again.

Hopeless and tonguetied, yet I loved you dearly

With pangs the jealous and timid know;

So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,

I pray God grant another love you so.