Humanity has long searched for the secret of happiness.
We want to feel the warmth of happiness surround us and have sought after this desired state of being. In her poem, “Seeking for Happiness”, Ella Wheeler Wilcox gives her thoughts on how we can seek happiness.
Please join me virtually on Burnaby Mountain, Simon Fraser University campus to recite, “Seeking for Happiness” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Seeking For Happiness
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Seeking for happiness we must go slowly;
The road leads not down avenues of haste;
But often gently winds through by ways lowly,
Whose hidden pleasures are serene and chaste
Seeking for happiness we must take heed
Of simple joys that are not found in speed.
Eager for noon-time's large effulgent splendour,
Too oft we miss the beauty of the dawn,
Which tiptoes by us, evanescent, tender,
Its pure delights unrecognised till gone.
Seeking for happiness we needs must care
For all the little things that make life fair.
Dreaming of future pleasures and achievements
We must not let to-day starve at our door;
Nor wait till after losses and bereavements
Before we count the riches in our store.
Seeking for happiness we must prize this -
Not what will be, or was, but that which IS.
In simple pathways hand in hand with duty
(With faith and love, too, ever at her side),
May happiness be met in all her beauty
The while we search for her both far and wide.
Seeking for happiness we find the way
Doing the things we ought to do each day.
Seeking For Happiness By Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Rebecca's Reading Room
For more poems and a short biography on Ella Wheeler Wilcox, I invite you to visit The Poetry Foundation.
Rebecca's Reading Room 
Wise words from yet another poet whose words I don’t know, even if she’s prolific.
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I confess, Margaret, that I had no idea who Ella Wheeler Wilcox was until I received this poem in my inbox. I have signed up to a poem-a-day which has introduced me to many new public domain poets. Literature courses gave me the well-known poets – Tennyson, Keats, Longfellow, etc. While there is a gentle tone that comes with the rhyming, I find that there an underlying call to action in this poem. I continue to learn and learn and learn…
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Beautiful. The first verse, in particular, resonates with me.
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Thank you for joining me on top of the mountain, Mandy. I have learned a great deal from exploring poetry in public domain. While there is a gentle tone in their words and rhyming, there is an underlying theme of accountability, that happiness it a choice. Sending hugs!!!
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Wilcox’s poem is couched in deceptively simple terms. It’s really quite profound.
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