Perhaps the best reward is just a smile

From Sonnets From Later Life 1981 – 1993. 17 January 1992

Sonnet for Praise

by Kenneth Boulding

Costs we know fairly well, but benefits

Are vague, obscure. Money, we must confess,

Has a nice quality of more or less,

Even when in a distant bank it sits.

But the net worth of praise takes all our wits

To calculate; and it is hard to guess

What people mean by honors, when they dress

Them up in gowns, hoods, calligraphic writs.

Perhaps the best reward is just a smile

A flash of recognition of a passer-by,

The handshake in a warm and friendly style.

Yet all these fade before the satisfaction

Of turnings one’s potential into action.