If the world’s a veil of tears, Smile till rainbows span it.

The couplet juxtaposes a traditional image of life as sorrowful—“a veil of tears” (a phrase with deep roots in Christian devotional language)—with an active, chosen response: to “smile” in spite of grief. The rainbow suggests not denial of suffering but a transformation of perception and atmosphere: joy or hope can refract through hardship the way light refracts through rain. The imperative “Smile” frames resilience as a moral and emotional practice, implying that one’s inner stance can alter the felt world, even if it cannot remove the rain itself.