Do you feel joy when joy has left the world?
Do you know all the mysteries of life
That fate bestows upon our flimsy heart?
The noise of crowded streets and busy days,
The wails of suffering, the cries of pain;
The sighs of love abandoned and of death,
The tears that fall when innocence is lost—
The endless joys of youth and of old age,
The laughter children laugh from day to day;
The day of birth, the night to pass away—
These songs that every day we sing again
Are those that that sing of pure humanity.

For what is joy without a mournful day,
And what is life without a time for death?
And what is peace, and purity and hope
Without the perils of despair and woe?

Now turn your heart to transcendental gleam,
And close your eyes to live that endless dream.