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.
The Comedian
Whatever the task and whatever the risk, wherever the flag's in air,
The funny man with his sunny ways is sure to be laughing there.
There are men who fret, there are men who dream, men making the best of it,
But whether it's hunger or death they face,
Or burning thirst in a desert place,
There is always one, by the good Lord's grace,
Who is making a jest of it.
He travels wherever his brothers go and he leaves his home behind him,
The need for smiles he seems to know; in the ranks of death you'll find him.
When some are weary and sick and faint, and all with the dust are choking,
He dances there with a spirit gay,
And tints with gold what is drab and gray,
And into the gloom of the night and day
He scatters his mirthful joking.
He wins to courage the soul-tried men; he lightens their hours of sorrow;
He turns their thoughts from the grief that is to the joy that may come to-morrow.
He mocks at death and he jests at toil, as one that is never weary;
He japes at danger and discipline,
Or the muddy trench that he's standing in;
There's nothing can banish his merry grin,
Or dampen his spirits cheery.
The honors of war to its heroes go; for them are the pomp and glory,
But seldom it is that the types relate a victory's inside story.
And few shall know when the strife is done and the history's made hereafter,
How much depended on him who stirred
The souls of men with a cheerful word,
And kept them brave by a jest absurd,
And brightened their days with laughter.
Faith
It is faith that bridges the land of breath
To the realms of the souls departed,
That comforts the living in days of death,
And strengthens the heavy-hearted.
It is faith in his dreams that keeps a man
Face front to the odds about him,
And he shall conquer who thinks he can,
In spite of the throngs who doubt him.