The Cost of Worth

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881)

From “Bitter Sweet”

THUS is it all over the earth!

That which we call the fairest,

And prize for its surpassing worth,

Is always rarest.

Iron is heaped in mountain piles,

And gluts the laggard forges;

But gold-flakes gleam in dim defiles

And lonely gorges.

The snowy marble flecks the land

With heaped and rounded ledges,

But diamonds hide within the sand

Their starry edges.

The finny armies clog the twine

That sweeps the lazy river,

But pearls come singly from the brine

With the pale diver.

God gives no value unto men

Unmatched by meed of labor;

And Cost of Worth has ever been

The closest neighbor.

*****

All common good has common price;

Exceeding good, exceeding;

Christ bought the keys of Paradise

By cruel bleeding;

And every soul that wins a place

Upon its hills of pleasure,

Must give it all, and beg for grace

To fill the measure.

*****

Up the broad stairs that Value rears

Stand motives beck’ning earthward,

To summon men to nobler spheres,

And lead them worthward.