Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BITTER-SWEET: THE COST OF WORTH, by JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BITTER-SWEET: THE COST OF WORTH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thus is it all over the earth!
Last Line: And lead them worthward.


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.




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