Their Cost.
Ellen M. H. Gates.
How cheap are the things which are bought and sold,
The beautiful things which the hands can hold,
Whatever is purchased with silver and gold.
The merchants are calling and filling their rooms
With jewels and laces and rarest perfumes,
And wonderful webs from the Indian looms.
The price of the treasures is small, as they say;
For dollars and cents, are exchanged every day
The furs of the North-land, the silks of Cathay.
But, oh! the rare things which can never be brought
From the far-away countries, but still must be sought
Through working and waiting and anguish of thought!
The patience that comes to the heart, as it tries
To hear, through all discord and turbulent cries,
The songs of the armies that march to the skies;
The courage that fails not, nor loses its breath
In stress of the battle, but smilingly saith,
“I’ll measure my strength with disaster and death;”
The love that through doubting and pain will increase;
The longing and restlessness, calmed into peace
That is perfect and satisfied, never to cease—
These, these are the dear things. No king on his throne
Can buy them away from the poor and unknown
Who make them, through labor or anguish, their own.
A true life must be simple in all its elements.—Horace Greeley.