telegram; "buy another shirt."
O heart of mine, we shouldn't
Worry so!
What we've missed of calm we couldn't
Have, you know!
What we've met of stormy pain,
And of sorrow's
driving rain,
We can better meet again,
If it blow!
We have erred in that dark hour
We have known,
When our tears fell with the shower,
All alone!--
Were not shine and shower blent
As the gracious
Master meant?--
Let us temper our content
With His own.
For, we know, not every morrow
Can be sad;
So, forgetting all the sorrow
We have had,
Let us fold away our fears,
And put by our foolish
tears,
And through all the coming years
Just be glad.
James Whitcomb Riley.
From the Biographical Edition Of the
Complete Works of James
Whitcomb Riley.
OPPORTUNITY
"I lack only one of having a hundred," said a student after an
examination; "I have the two naughts." And all he did lack was a one,
rightly placed. The world is full of opportunities. Discernment to
perceive, courage to undertake, patience to carry through, will change
the whole aspect of the universe for us and bring positive achievement
out of meaningless negation.
With doubt and dismay you are smitten
You think there's no chance
for you, son?
Why, the best books haven't been written
The best
race hasn't been run,
The best score hasn't been made yet,
The best
song hasn't been sung,
The best tune hasn't been played yet,
Cheer
up, for the world is young!
No chance? Why the world is just eager
For things that you ought to
create
Its store of true wealth is still meagre
Its needs are incessant
and great,
It yearns for more power and beauty
More laughter and
love and romance,
More loyalty, labor and duty,
No chance--why
there's nothing but chance!
For the best verse hasn't been rhymed yet,
The best house hasn't been
planned,
The highest peak hasn't been climbed yet,
The mightiest
rivers aren't spanned,
Don't worry and fret, faint hearted,
The
chances have just begun,
For the Best jobs haven't been started,
The
Best work hasn't been done.
Berton Braley.
From "A Banjo at Armageddon."
SOLITUDE
Said an Irishman who had several times been kicked downstairs: "I
begin to think they don't want me around here." So it is with our
sorrows, our struggles. Life decrees that they belong to us individually.
If we try to make others share them, we are shunned. But struggling
and weary humanity is glad enough to share our joys.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth
Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough
of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes
bound
To a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They
want full measure
Of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your
woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all;
There are none to decline
Your nectared wine,
But alone you must
drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by;
Succeed and give,
And it helps you live,
But it cannot help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train;
But one by one
We must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of
pain.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
From "How Salvator Won."
UNSUBDUED
"An artist's career," said Whistler, "always begins to-morrow." So does
the career of any man of courage and imagination. The Eden of such a
man does not lie in yesterday. If he has done well, he forgets his
achievements and dreams of the big deeds ahead. If he has been
thwarted, he forgets his failures and looks forward to vast, sure
successes. If fate itself opposes him, he defies it. Farragut's fleet was
forcing an entrance into Mobile Bay. One of the vessels struck
something, a terrific explosion followed, the vessel went down.
"Torpedoes, sir." They scanned the face of the commander-in-chief.
But Farragut did not hesitate. "Damn the torpedoes," said he. "Go
ahead."
I have hoped, I have planned, I have striven,
To the will I have added
the deed;
The best that was in me I've given,
I have prayed, but the
gods would not heed.
I have dared and reached only disaster,
I have battled and broken my
lance;
I am bruised by a pitiless master
That the weak and the timid
call Chance.
I am old, I am bent, I am cheated
Of all that Youth urged me to win;
But name me not with the defeated,
To-morrow again, I begin.
S.E. Kiser.
From "Poems That Have Helped Me."
WORK
"A SONG OF TRIUMPH"
When Captain John Smith was made the leader of the colonists at
Jamestown, Va., he discouraged the get-rich-quick seekers of gold by
announcing flatly, "He who will not work shall not eat." This rule made
of Jamestown the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
But work does more than lead to material success. It gives an
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