Post #28 We are not always glad when we smile...

This is one of my favorite poems by Indiana Poet, James Whitcomb Riley. It was in a collection of his writing that I once had. It seems to hit the nail on the head for me quite often. We are not always glad when we smile. There are stories behind everyone's faint attempt at cordial social appropriateness. We have pain, disappointment, and anger behind the pleasantries. This is why it is so important to not just ask how someone is doing, but to really ask them about their lives. We so often move on before they even get the chance to answer. Anyway, here is the poem. Enjoy.

We are 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.

-James Whitcomb Riley