{"id":3582,"date":"2023-08-02T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/may-sartons-stunning-poem-about-being-at-home-in-yourself-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2023-08-02T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T22:50:09","slug":"may-sartons-stunning-poem-about-being-at-home-in-yourself-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/may-sartons-stunning-poem-about-being-at-home-in-yourself-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"May Sarton\u2019s Stunning Poem About Being at Home in Yourself \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/May-Sarton-Collected-Poems-1930-1993\/dp\/0393034933\/?tag=braipick-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"480\" class=\"cover alignright size-medium jetpack-lazy-image\" alt=\"The Work of Happiness: May Sarton\u2019s Stunning Poem About Being at Home in Yourself\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/maysarton_collectedpoems.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/maysarton_collectedpoems.jpg?resize=320%2C480&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/maysarton_collectedpoems.jpg?resize=600%2C901&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/maysarton_collectedpoems.jpg?resize=240%2C360&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/maysarton_collectedpoems.jpg?resize=768%2C1153&amp;ssl=1 768w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/maysarton_collectedpoems.jpg?fit=320%2C480&amp;ssl=1&amp;is-pending-load=1\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a culture predicated on the perpetual pursuit of happiness, as if it were a fugitive on the loose, it can be hard to discern what <em>having<\/em> happiness actually feels like, how it actually lives in us. Willa Cather came consummately close in her definition of happiness as the feeling of being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2015\/08\/26\/willa-cather-my-antonia-happiness\/\">\u201cdissolved into something complete and great\u201d<\/a> \u2014 a definition consonant with Iris Murdoch\u2019s lovely notion of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2022\/01\/08\/iris-murdoch-the-sublime-and-the-good\/\">unselfing<\/a>. And yet happiness is as much a matter of how we inhabit the self \u2014 how we make ourselves at home in our own singular lives, in the dwelling-places of our own experience. <\/p>\n<p>That is what <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/tag\/may-sarton\/\">May Sarton<\/a> (May 3, 1912\u2013July 16, 1995), who has written so movingly about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2016\/10\/17\/may-sarton-journal-of-a-solitude-depression\/\">unhappiness and its cure<\/a>, explores in her poem \u201cThe Work of Happiness,\u201d included in her indispensable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/May-Sarton-Collected-Poems-1930-1993\/dp\/0393034933\/?tag=braipick-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>Collected Poems: 1930\u20131993<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/26586891\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>public library<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;The Work of Happiness&quot; by May Sarton (read by Maria Popova)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/baVymEBKDzw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>THE WORK OF HAPPINESS<\/strong><br \/><em>by May Sarton<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I thought of happiness, how it is woven<br \/>Out of the silence in the empty house each day<br \/>And how it is not sudden and it is not given<br \/>But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.<br \/>No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark<br \/>Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.<br \/>No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,<br \/>But the tree is lifted by this inward work<br \/>And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.<\/p>\n<p>So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours<br \/>And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:<br \/>The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,<br \/>White curtains softly and continually blown<br \/>As the free air moves quietly about the room;<br \/>A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall \u2014<br \/>These are the dear familiar gods of home,<br \/>And here the work of faith can best be done,<br \/>The growing tree is green and musical.<\/p>\n<p>For what is happiness but growth in peace,<br \/>The timeless sense of time when furniture<br \/>Has stood a life\u2019s span in a single place,<br \/>And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir<br \/>The shining leaves of present happiness?<br \/>No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,<br \/>But where people have lived in inwardness<br \/>The air is charged with blessing and does bless;<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Complement with Bertrand Russell on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2023\/02\/21\/bertrand-russell-happiness\/\">the secret of happiness<\/a> and Kurt Vonnegut on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2014\/01\/16\/kurt-vonnegut-joe-heller-having-enough\/\">the one word it comes down to<\/a>, then revisit Sarton\u2019s poem <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2023\/02\/12\/meditation-in-sunlight-may-sarton-amanda-palmer\/\">\u201cMeditation in Sunlight\u201d<\/a> and her magnificent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2017\/12\/01\/may-sarton-canticle-6-considerations\/\">ode to solitude<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a culture predicated on the perpetual pursuit of happiness, as if it were a fugitive on the loose, it can be hard to discern [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}