Poem: Worth While

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 to-day -
   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.
 
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox in "Poems of Cheer"