True Worth is in Being.

75

ALICE CARY.
JAS. L. ORR.

1. True worth is in being, not seeming,
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good thing, not in dreaming,
Of great things to do by and by.
Whatever men say in their blindness,
In spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.

2. We get back our mete as measure,
We can not do wrong and feel right,
Nor can we give pain and feel 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.

3. We can not 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 and of small;
But just in the doing and doing
As we would be done by, is all.

4. Thro' envy, thro' malice, thro' hating,
Against the world early and late,
No jot of our courage a bating,
Our part is to work and to wait.
And slight is the sting of his trouble
Whose winning is less than his worth;
For he who is honest is noble,
Whatever his fortune or birth.