Poems and Lancashire Songs By Edwin Waugh. Fourth Edition, With Additions |
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ALAS! HOW HARD IT IS TO SMILE. |
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 | Poems and Lancashire Songs |  |
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ALAS! HOW HARD IT IS TO SMILE.
I
Alas! how hard it is to smileWhen all within is sad;
And rooted sorrow to beguile
By mingling with the glad.
The heart that swells with grief disdains
Pretension's mean alloy,
And feels far less its keenest pains
Than mockeries of joy.
II
How few among the thoughtless crowdsCan tell the jealous care
With which a gentle spirit shrouds
Its pangs from worldly glare.
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Of sympathy alone;
Its trembling fibres shrink from such
As cannot feel their tone.
III
The gay may sport upon the waveOf life's untroubled tides,—
Like birds that warble on a grave,
They dream not what it hides;
But pleasure's wretched masquerade
Wakes sorrow's keenest throe;—
The saddest look is not so sad
As the strainèd smile of woe.
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