Not Always Glad When We Smile

We are not always glad when we smile:      Though we wear a fair face and are gay,         And the world we deceive         May not ever believe      We could laugh in a happier way. -     Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,      Ofttimes, with our faces aglow,         There's an ache and a moan         That we know of alone,     And as only the hopeless may know.     We are not always glad when we smile, -      For the heart, in a tempest of pain,         May live in the guise         Of a smile in the eyes      As a rainbow may live in the rain;     And the stormiest night of our woe      May hang out a radiant star         Whose light in the sky         Of despair is a lie     As black as the thunder-clouds are.     We are not always glad when we smile! -      But the conscience is quick to record,         All the sorrow and sin         We are hiding within      Is plain in the sight of the Lord:     And ever, O ever, till pride      And evasion shall cease to defile         The sacred recess         Of the soul, we confess     We are not always glad when we smile.