Laugh and the World will share your joy,
Weep and yet it acts distant and coy.
For the Old Earth is sad and must borrow it's mirth,
From those who have known nothing but joy since birth.
Sing aloud and the hills do answer,
Sigh and lose voice to the air.
The echoes bound, to joyful sound,
But shrink away from voicing care.
Rejoice, and People do seek you,
Grieve, and they will turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But will not share in your woe.
Be glad in having friends a plenty,
Show sadness and lose them all.
None will decline your nectared wine,
But alone you will drink down life's gall.
Feast well and your halls be crowded,
Fast, and the world leaves you by;
Succeed and give, it aids you live,
But none will see you die.
There lay room in the halls of pleasure, for a large and lordly reign,
But one by one, we all must fall in and walk solemn down the corridor of pain;
For death comes to all, swift or everlasting, none can chose their end,
All we can choose, with little else to lose, is, if our soul we can mend.
