Just To Be Good

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



Just to be good--
This is enough--enough!
O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
Do we not feel how more than any gold
Would be the blameless life we led of old
While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!

It is enough--
Enough--just to be good!
To lift our hearts where they are understood;
To let the thirst for worldly power and place
Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
87

Quick analysis:

Scheme abbccdDDB baaeedDDB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 541
Words 112
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 9, 9

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

All James Whitcomb Riley poems | James Whitcomb Riley Books

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