34 The Khan's Canticles Poem by Robert Kirkland Kernighan

We meet them and greet them at ev'ry turn,
We pass and know not their hidden sorrows.

O, brothers, think of the hidden fears

That throng the unseen bosoms quaking ;

It 's hard to laugh thro' the blinding tears,

It 's hard to smile when the heart is breaking.

And are we guiltless when these are met,

And our hearts are filled with a music mellow ?
Do we ask the man with eyelids wet,

Brother, what ails your heart, old fellow ?
But we nod our heads and onward go,

No worry at all at his trouble taking ;
The day may come when ourselves shall know

How hard to smile when the heart is breaking.