| Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829. | | | | What Is Happiness? | | By Joseph Brown Ladd (1764–1786) |
| | | ’T IS an empty, fleeting shade, | |
| By imagination made: | |
| ’T is a bubble, straw, or worse | |
| ’T is a baby’s hobby-horse: | |
| ’T is two hundred shillings clear; | 5 |
| ’T is ten thousand pounds a year: | |
| ’T is a title, ’t is a name; | |
| ’T is a puff of empty fame; | |
| Fickle as the breezes blow; | |
| ’T is a lady’s yes or no! | 10 |
| And when the description’s crown’d, | |
| ’T is just no where to be found. | |
| Arouet shows, I must confess, | |
| Says Delia, what is happiness; | |
| I wish he now would tell us what | 15 |
| This self-same happiness is not. | |
| What happiness is not? I vow, | |
| That, Delia, you have posed me now: | |
| What it is not—stay, let me see— | |
| I think, dear maid, ’t is—not for me. | 20 | | | |
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