This poem’s sometimes-flowery style expresses a profound truth: the smallest and seemingly least significant things in the world all hold some element of mystery and magic that can transform our experience, if we’re willing to take the time to pay attention to them.

HIDDEN JOYS

Laman Blanchard

(1803–1845)

Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:

There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground

But holds some joy, of silence, or of sound,

Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.

The very meanest things are made supreme

With innate ecstacy. No grain of sand

But moves a bright and million-peopled land,

And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem.

For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye

Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things,

And touch’d mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh,

Minute or mighty, fix’d or free with wings,

Delight from many a nameless covert sly

Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings.