- True worth is in being, not seeming,—
- In doing, each day that goes by,
- Some little good—not in dreaming
- Of great things to do by and by.
- For whatever men say in their blindness,
- And spite of the fancies of youth,
- There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
- And nothing so royal as truth.
- We get back our mete as we measure—
- We cannot do wrong and feel right,
- Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure,
- For justice avenges each slight.
- The air for the wing of the sparrow,
- The bush for the robin and wren,
- But always the path that is narrow
- And straight, for the children of men.
- ’Tis not in the pages of story
- The heart of its ills to beguile,
- Though he who makes courtship to glory
- Gives all that he hath for her smile.
- For when from her heights he has won her,
- Alas! it is only to prove
- That nothing’s so sacred as honor,
- And nothing so loyal as love!
- We cannot make bargains for blisses,
- Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
- And sometimes the thing our life misses
- Helps more than the thing which it gets.
- For good lieth not in pursuing,
- Nor gaining of great nor of small,
- But just in the doing, and doing
- As we would be done by, is all.
- Through envy, through malice, through hating,
- Against the world, early and late,
- No jot of our courage abating—
- Our part is to work and to wait
- And slight is the sting of his trouble
- Whose winnings are less than his worth.
- For he who is honest is noble
- Whatever his fortunes or birth.
