Believe Not Those Who Say
Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou should stumble in the way,
And faint before the truth.
It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.
To labor and to love,
To pardon and endure,
To lift thy heart to God above,
And keep thy conscience pure.
Be this thy constant aim,
Thy hope, thy chief delight,
What matter who should whisper blame
Or who should scorn or slight.
What matters—if God approve,
And if within thy breast,
Thou feel the comfort of His love,
The earnest of His rest?
This poem, by Anne Brontë, the nineteenth-century novelist and sister of Charlotte, is usually sung to Walter's Festal Song when sung as a hymn, although I tend to like it better sung to Sydenham's King Edward.
