Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, October 16th, 2024.

Today's poem comes from John Maysfield, poet of the late Victorian and early 20th century periods.

It's called laugh and be merry.

I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.

Laugh and be merry.

Laugh and be merry. Remember, better the world with a song. Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.

Laugh, for the time is brief.

A thread, the length of span.

Laugh and be proud to belong to the old, proud pageant of man.

Laugh and be merry, remember in olden time.

God made heaven and earth, for joy he took in a rhyme.

Made them and filled them full with the strong red wine of his mirth, the splendid joy of the stars, the joy of the earth. So we must laugh and drink

from the deep blue cup of the sky, join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,

laugh and battle and work and drink of the wine out poured in the

dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord. Laugh and be married together, like brothers akin,

guesting a while in the rooms of a beautiful inn. Glad till the dancing stops and the lilt of the

music ends. Laugh till the game is played and be you merry, my friends.

This poem is something of a departure from Maysfield's other works,

which tend to be more somber in tone. His most

famous poem is probably sea fever, which is a poem of longing, of nostalgia. He has a far more

somber or melancholy poem, a lengthy poem, The Everlasting Mercy.

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