The beauty of the quiet life has been a poetic theme since the Ancients: the quietude of unambition, the pleasure of anonymity, and the ease of unremarked death. Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was a profoundly ambitious poet — but he knew the traditions of poetic tropes from an early age. So early, in fact, that he wrote this paean to the quiet life when he was 12 years old. And he may well have meant it, for ambition is an ambiguous thing, and the bright little boys on the edge of exploding on the world know the ambiguities. In “Ode on Solitude,” Pope uses tetrameter quatrains, rhymed abab, with a shortened final line to give a fading classical feel to the poem, which declares that the quiet, unremarked country life is best for human flourishing.

Ode on Solitude
by Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care 
   A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air, 
                            In his own ground. 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, 
   Whose flocks supply him with attire, 
Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
                            In winter fire. 

Blest, who can unconcernedly find 
   Hours, days, and years slide soft away, 
In health of body, peace of mind, 
                            Quiet by day, 

Sound sleep by night; study and ease, 
   Together mixed; sweet recreation; 
And innocence, which most does please, 
                            With meditation. 

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; 
   Thus unlamented let me die; 
Steal from the world, and not a stone 
                            Tell where I lie.

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet, Sally Thomas. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.