One Cannot Make Another Happy

Music: Hommage a Rameau By Claude Debussy. Sequenced by Dario Galimberti at Kunst der Fuge.

Enter your search terms Submit search form Web www.poemsforfree.com

Hear me read the poem: As a .wav file As an MP3 file Alpha List   Psychological Poems About This Site Poems for Free Copyright by Nicholas Gordon

One cannot make another happy, Whatever one might do or say, For happiness remains a choice Not even love can hope to sway.   The sacrifice of time and strength And preference and goods may be Of help, of course, but cannot calm The winds that roil a restless sea.   Everything one does, like dust, Transforms the light in which all live. But happiness is not a gift It is within one's power to give.   One can only love, and be A witness to the life that each At last must live alone, for Good or ill beyond a lover's reach.