Serve God and be cheerful. Make brighter
The brightness that falls to thy lot;
The rare, or the daily sent, blessing
Profane not with gloom or with doubt.
Serve God and be cheerful. Each sorrow
Is--with thy will in God's--for the best.
O'er the cloud hangs the rainbow. To-morrow
Will see the blue sky in the west.
Serve God and be cheerful. Look upward!
God's countenance scatters the gloom;
And the soft summer light of his heaven
Shines over the cross and the tomb.
Serve God and be cheerful. The wrinkles
Of age we may take with a smile;
But the wrinkles of faithless foreboding
Are the crow's-feet of Beelzebub's guile.
Serve God and be cheerful. The winter
Rolls round to the beautiful spring.
And o'er the green grave of the snowdrift
The nest-building robins will sing.
Serve God and be cheerful. Live nobly,
Do right, and do good. Make the best
Of the gifts and the work put before you,
And to God without fear leave the rest.
--William Newell.