Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art;
But some tell their days by the flow of their tears.
And their lives by the moans of their heart.

The dials of earth may show
The length, not the depth of years,
Few or many they come,
few or many they go,
But time is best measured by tears.

For the young are oft-times old,
Though their brows be bright and fair;
While their blood beats warm,
their hearts are cold.
O'er them the spring but winter is there.

And the old are oft-time young,
When their hair is thin and white;
And they sing in age, as in youth they sung,
And they laugh for their cross was light.

But, bead by bead, I tell
The rosary of my years,
From a cross to a cross they lead; tis well
And they're blest with a blessing of tears.

Better a day of strife
Than a century of sleep;
Give me instead of a long stream of life
The tempests and tears of the deep.

A thousand joys may foam
On the billows of all the years;
But never the foam brings the lone back home;
It reaches the haven through tears.
Abram J. Ryan


It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery