Be kind when you can, though the kindness be little, <br />'Tis small letters make up philosophers' scrolls; <br />The crystal of Happiness, vivid and brittle, <br />Can seldom be cut into very large bowls. <br /> <br />'Tis atoms that dwell in the measureless mountain, <br />'Tis moments that sum up the century's flight; <br />'Tis but drops that unite in Niagara's fountain, <br />'Tis rays, single rays, from the harvest-sun light. <br /> <br />Stone by stone builds the temple that rises in glory, <br />Inch by inch grows the child till maturity's prime; <br />The jewels so famous in bright, Eastern story <br />Have been nursed, tint by tint, in the blossom of Time. <br /> <br />'Tis grains make the desert-sheet, trackless and spreading; <br />'Tis but petals that deck every blossom-twinned spray; <br />There are leaves - only leaves - where the forest is shedding <br />Its gloom till the density shuts out the day. <br /> <br />A word or a glance which we give 'without thinking', <br />May shadow or lighten some sensitive breast; <br />And the draught from the well-spring is wine in the drinking, <br />If quaffed from the brim that Affection has blest. <br /> <br />Then be kind when you can in the smallest of duties, <br />Don't wait for the larger expressions of Love; <br />For the heart depends less for its joys and its beauties <br />On the flight of the Eagle than coo of the Dove.<br /><br />Eliza Cook<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/be-kind-when-you-can/
