When all the time my face is glad,

And though contentment lights my eye,

You say my verse is strangely sad;

So serious that e’en the strain

You can detect, as on the pane

You know the patter in the night,

Although the cloud is hid from sight.

You asked me once to change my tone,

“To trim my pen for gayer verse,”

And, laughing, said ’twas like a moan

That followed close behind a hearse.

My muse was saddened at the stroke,

And in my heart new chords awoke,

Chords that vibrate like the bell

That tolled one day a funeral knell.

I would not have them otherwise;

I claim my caged bird’s song more sweet

Because ’tis sad, than one which tries

The echo merrier to repeat.

How quickly I would turn aside,

And soon forget a boist’rous tide,

To hear the brooklet, sad and low,

Sing in a minor key I know.

I’ll not attempt Hood’s humorous style,

I do not crave John Gilpin’s ride.

It was my custom, when a child,

To linger at my mother’s side

When she would sing “The Old Church Yard,”

That told how soft and green its sward.

“The angels that watched ’round the tomb”

Crept, as she sang, into our room.

’Tis said the clown will never jest

When folded is the showman’s tent;

That she who pathos renders best

Has loudest laugh in merriment.

Thus, vice versa is the theme,

Or, “all things are not what they seem.”

Sadness to Joy is as a twin,

One rules without, one rules within.

My life is full of love and joy,

My heart-strings, though, with sadness tuned.

Then do not ask me to destroy

The mournful measures; it would wound

My Muse—the playmate of my youth—

Who taught me early many a truth

From others’ woes, and bid me think

While she supplied the pen and ink.