God gives you your happiness. It is a secret thing
Swelling into flower from the seed of gratitude.
You carry it within you as you pass between
The solitary places and the multitude.
You cherish it in the night watch, and in the day
New flowers break bud, serene, secure, and gay.
Happiness is your unity with your Father,
Your brotherhood with your fellow man.
Cherish happiness. It will take you much further
Than popularity or ambition can.
It will give you power with untold kindness and courage;
It will give you vision, so that wherever you come,
Into desert or city or village—
Wherever your work is—there is your home.
"Your joy no man taketh from you," said Jesus;
And no man gives it, either.
The happiness of laughter and friendship and gracious living,
All these come from the Father.
And there is a quieter happiness,
When the winds of the world blow cold,
Which convinces us that His love made and maintained us
Before the beginning of the world.
