One of the classics in the Dutch day calendar today - a poem by Herman Gorter

The day’s unfolding like a golden rose

The day’s unfolding like a golden rose;

I send my breath out at the window-sill,

there’s scarcely any sound – the fields lie still –

that rises to the blue sky’s vaulted dome.

And in my boxlike room, completely black,

in front of which the pearls hang on the pane,

I pace the floor until I’m stopped again

and quietly muse when dark walls halt my track.

I’ve found it, human happiness, despite

it taking four and thirty years for me

to do so, and much searching failed outright

through tussles, gestures made quite needlessly.

As sure though as the world outside is dressed

in veils of sunlight, I’ve found happiness.