I Have Found Such Joy.

Isn't it strange sometimes, how just as soon as you learn about something, it starts popping up everywhere? This happened to me recently. A few weeks ago I saw a poem by the American poet Grace Noll Crowell on someone's blog. I loved it, and I printed it out to put on our fridge. Since then, I have seen her poems on several different blogs...they are all lovely and they seem to speak to the place I am in my life right now. 

Grace Noll Crowell, born in 1877, was a very popular writer in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. She wrote poems, devotions, and books for children. I am currently trying to locate online somewhere a copy of the her last printed "best of" collection--it seems to be very rare however and almost impossible to find. I think it's sad that such a wonderful poet would not still be in print. But I suppose most modern publishers would consider her too old fashioned. What a shame.

~I Have Found Such Joy~

I have found such joy in simple things;

A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread

A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,

The shelter of a roof above my head,

And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,

Where yellow sunlight glimmers through a door.

 

I have found such joy in things that fill

My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,

A potted plant upon my window sill,

A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;

A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,

And books I long have loved beside me there.

 

Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might

Tell every woman who goes seeking far

For some elusive, feverish delight,

That very close to home the great joys are:

The elemental things-- old as the race, 

Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

 

Grace Noll Crowell

Comments

[Missus]

What a lovely poem, and a great theme to start the week.

Thanks for sharing the work of this poet.

[Misha@ beauty and joy]

I love that poem (and your site!) - it is completely beautiful!