Worth While

"Worth While" 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) 

It is easy enough to be pleasant
    When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
    When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
    And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
    Is the smile that shines through tears.

It is easy enough to be prudent
    When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
    Is luring your soul away;
But it's only a negative virtue
    Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honour on earth
    Is the one that resists desire.

By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
    Who had no strength for the strife,
The world's highway is cumbered today; 
    They make up the sum of life. 
But the virtue that conquers passion,
    And the sorrow that hides in a smile, 
It is these that are worth the homage on earth,
    For we find them but once in a while.