Nobility

From the Newark Evening Star, July 19, 1915. By Alice Cary.

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 blindness,
    And in spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
    There’s nothing so royal as truth.

We get back our meet 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’s so royal 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 being, 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.