The Children

The children bring us laughter, and the children bring us tears;
They string our joys, like jewels bright, upon the thread of years;
They bring the bitterest cares we know, their mothers' sharpest pain,
Then smile our world to loveliness, like sunshine after rain.
The children make us what we are; the childless king is spurned;
The children send us to the hills where glories may be earned;
For them we pledge our lives to strife, for them do mothers fade,
And count in new-born loveliness their sacrifice repaid.
The children bring us back to God; in eyes that dance and shine
Men read from day to day the proof of love and power divine;
For them are fathers brave and good and mothers fair and true,
For them is every cherished dream and every deed we do.
For children are the furnace fires of life kept blazing high;
For children on the battle fields are soldiers pleased to die;
In every place where humans toil, in every dream and plan,
The laughter of the children shapes the destiny of man.