Content Written Off Ithica poem – Alfred Austin

I could not find the little maid Content,

So out I rushed, and sought her far and wide;

But not where Pleasure each new fancy tried,

Heading the maze of reeling merriment,

Nor where, with restless eyes and bow half bent,

Love in a brake of sweetbrier smiled and sighed,

Nor yet where Fame towered crowned and glorified,

Found I her face, nor wheresoe’er I went.

So homeward back I crawled like wounded bird,

When lo! Content sate spinning at my door:

And when I asked her where she was before-

“Here all the time,” she said; “I never stirred;

Too eager in your search, you passed me o’er,

And, though I called, you neither saw nor heard.”

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Alfred Austin

Alfred Austin (1835 –1913) was an English journalist and apoet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or simply refused the honor. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895.

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