I set out for the Land of Content,
By the gay crowded pleasure-highway,
With laughter, and jesting, I went
With the mirth-loving throng for a day;
Then I knew I had wandered astray,
For I met returned pilgrims, belated,
Who said, “We are weary and sated,
But we found not the Land of Content.”
I turned to the steep path of fame,
I said, “It is over yon height —
This land with the beautiful name —
Ambition will lend me its light.”
But I paused in my journey ere night,
For the way grew so lonely and troubled;
I said — my anxiety doubled —
“This is not the road to Content.”
Then I joined the great rabble and throng
That frequents the moneyed world's mart;
But the greed, and the grasping and wrong,
Left me only one wish — to depart.
And sickened, and saddened at heart,
I hurried away from the gateway,
For my soul and my spirit said straightway,
“This is not the road to Content.”
Then weary in body and brain,
An overgrown path I detected,
And I said “I will hide with my pain
In this by-way, unused and neglected.”
Lo! it led to the realm God selected
To crown with his best gifts of beauty,
And through the dark pathway of duty
I came to the land of Content.