i could be happy.

i could be happy,
but i am content,
living in melancholy.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk, Chapter Fourteen, Pg 127:

"Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all poets. If you've been happy too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic powers... Happiness and poetry can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterward, either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness."