Singers by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The sweetest songs that were ever sung, / And those that please the best, / Through sorrow, and grief, and tears were wrung / From some o'er-burdened breast. / Though the words breathe only of mirth, and bloom, / And the strains are the gladdest and lightest, / Remember that after a night of gloom, / The rays of the sun are brightest.

The rain must fall, ere the spring-time grass / Grows tender, and green, and sweet. / Through the pangs of travail, a soul must pass, / Ere a song is born complete. / After a winter of storm, and snow, / Blossom the buds in our bowers: / After a season of tears and woe, / Blossom the poet's flowers.

There are few who give the poet a thought, / When they read the pleasing strain. / There are few who know that a poem is wrought / Through sorrow, and tears, and pain. / The merriest song, and the blithest lay, / And those that are sweetest and gladdest, / Are woven in gloomy and cheerless days, / When the poet's heart is the saddest.