It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration | Page 9

choked,
still try to sing.
If times are dark, believe them fair,
And you will
cross the Delaware!
Joseph Morris.
RABBI BEN EZRA
(SELECTED VERSES)
To some people success is everything, and the easier it is gained the
better. To Browning success is nothing unless it is won by painful
effort. What Browning values is struggle. Throes, rebuffs, even failure
to achieve what we wish, are to be welcomed, for the effects of
vigorous endeavor inweave themselves into our characters; moreover
through struggle we lift ourselves from the degradation into which the
indolent fall. In the intervals of strife we may look back dispassionately
upon what we have gone through, see where we erred and where we
did wisely, watch the workings of universal laws, and resolve to apply
hereafter what we have hitherto learned.
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts
pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang;
dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence,--a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,--
Shall life
succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not,
comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the
scale.
So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern,
compare, pronounce at last,
"This rage was right i' the main,
That
acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the

Past."
For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act
to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The
Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's
true play.
Robert Browning.
TO MELANCHOLY
The last invitation anybody would accept is "Come, let us weep
together." If we keep melancholy at our house, we should be careful to
have it under lock and key, so that no one will observe it.
Melancholy,
Melancholy,
I've no use for you, by Golly!
Yet I'm
going to keep you hidden
In some chamber dark, forbidden,
Just as
though you were a prize, sir,
Made of gold, and I a miser--
Not
because I think you jolly,
Melancholy!
Not for that I mean to hoard you,
Keep you close and
lodge and board you
As I would my sisters, brothers,
Cousins, aunts,
and old grandmothers,
But that you shan't bother others
With your
sniffling, snuffling folly,
Howling,
Yowling,
Melancholy.
John Kendrick Bangs.
From "Songs of Cheer."
THE LION PATH
Admiral Dupont was explaining to Farragut his reasons for not taking
his ironclads into Charleston harbor. "You haven't given me the main
reason yet," said Farragut. "What's that?" "You didn't think you could
do it." So the man who thinks he can't pass a lion, can't. But the man

who thinks he can, can. Indeed he oftentimes finds that the lion isn't
really there at all.
I dare not!--
Look! the road is very dark--
The trees stir softly and the bushes
shake,
The long grass rustles, and the darkness moves
Here! there!
beyond--!
There's something crept across the road just now!
And
you would have me go--?
Go there, through that live darkness,
hideous
With stir of crouching forms that wait to kill?
Ah, look!
See there! and there! and there again!
Great yellow, glassy eyes, close
to the ground!
Look! Now the clouds are lighter I can see
The long
slow lashing of the sinewy tails,
And the set quiver of strong jaws
that wait--!
Go there? Not I! Who dares to go who sees
So perfectly
the lions in the path?
Comes one who dares.
Afraid at first, yet bound
On such high errand as no fear could stay.

Forth goes he, with lions in his path.
And then--?
He dared a death of agony--
Outnumbered battle with the king of
beasts--
Long struggles in the horror of the night--
Dared, and went
forth to meet--O ye who fear!
Finding an empty road, and nothing
there--
And fences, and the dusty roadside trees--
Some spitting
kittens, maybe, in the grass.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
From "In This Our World."
THE ANSWER
Bob Fitzsimmons lacked the physical bulk of the men he fought, was
ungainly in build and movement, and not infrequently got himself
floored in the early rounds of his contests. But many people consider

him the best fighter for his weight who ever stepped into the prize ring.
Not a favorite at first, he won the popular heart by making good. Of
course he had great natural powers; from any position when the chance
at last came he could dart forth a sudden, wicked blow that no human
being could withstand. But more formidable still was the spirit which
gave him cool and complete command of all his resources, and made
him most dangerous when he was on the verge of being knocked out.
When the battle breaks against you and the crowd forgets to cheer
When the Anvil Chorus echoes with the essence of a jeer;
When the
knockers start their panning in the knocker's nimble way With a rap for
all your