BETTER THAN GOLD

Better than grandeur, better than gold,

Than rank and titles a thousandfold,

Is a healthy body, a mind at ease,

And simple pleasures that always please;

A heart that can feel for another's woe,

That has learned with love's deep fires to glow,

With sympathy large enough to enfold

All men as brothers, is better than gold.

Better than gold is a conscience clear,

Though toiling for bread in a humble sphere;

Doubly blest is content and health

Untried by the lusts and the cares of wealth.

Lowly living and lofty thought

Adorn and ennoble the poor man's cot;

For mind and morals in nature's plan

Are the genuine tests of the gentleman.

Better than gold is the sweet repose

Of the sons of toil when labors close;

Better than gold is the poor man's sleep

And the balm that drops on his slumbers deep.

Bring sleeping draughts to the downy bed,

Where luxury pillows its aching head;

The toiler a simple opiate deems

A shorter route to the land of dreams.

Better than gold is a thinking mind

That in the realm of books can find

A treasure surpassing Australian ore,

And live with the great and good of yore;

The sage's lore and the poet's lay;

The glories of empires passed away;

The world's great dream will thus unfold

And yield a pleasure better than gold.

Better than gold is a peaceful home,

Where all the fireside characters come,

The shrine of love, the heaven of life,

Hallowed by mother or by wife.

However humble the home may be,

Or tried with sorrow by heaven's decree,

The blessings that never were bought or sold

And center there, are better than gold.

--Abram J. Ryan.

When success exalts thy lot

God for thy virtue lays a plot.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson.