If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none ton much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling
Reprinted by permission of Mr. Rudyard Kipling,
and Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co.
Copyright 1892 and 1910 by Rudyard Kipling,
From "Rudyard Kipling's Verse, 1885-1918,'
Doubleday, Page & Co.

INVICTUS

,

Triumph in spirit over adverse conditions is the keynote of this poem of courage undismayed. It rings with the power of the individual to guide his own destiny.

UT of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley.

IT COULDN'T BE DONE

After a thing has been done, everybody is ready to declare it easy. But before it has been done, it is called impossible. One reason why people fear to embark upon great enterprises is that they see all the difficulties at once. They know they could succeed in the initial tasks, but they shrink from what is to follow. Yet “a thing begun is half done.” Moreover the surmounting of the first barrier gives strength and ingenuity for the harder ones beyond. Mountains viewed from a distance seem to be unscalable. But they can be climbed, and the way to begin is to take the first upward step. From that moment the mountains are less high. As Hannibal led his army across the foothills, then among the upper ranges, and finally over the loftiest peaks and passes of the Alps, or as Peary pushed farther and farther into the solitudes that encompass the North Pole, so can you achieve any purpose whatsoSver if you heed not the doubters, meet each problem as it arises, and keep ever with you the assurance It Can Be Done,

OMEBODY said that it couldn't be done,

But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed : "Oh, you'll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it”;
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure; There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you'll do it.

Edgar A. Guest.
From "The Path to Home,"
The Reilly & Lee Co.

THE WELCOME MAN

TH

"HERE'S a man in the world who is never turned

down, wherever he chances to stray; he gets the glad hand in the populous town, or out where the farmers make hay; he's greeted with pleasure on deserts of sand, and deep in the aisles of the woods; wherever he goes there's the welcoming hand-he's The Man Who Delivers the Goods. The failures of life sit around and complain; the gods haven't treated them white; they've lost their umbrellas whenever there's rain, and they haven't their lanterns at night; men tire of the failures who fill with their sighs the air of their own neighborhoods; there's one who is greeted with love-lighted eyes -he's The Man Who Delivers the Goods. One fellow is lazy, and watches the clock, and waits for the whistle to blow; and one has a hammer, with which he will knock, and one tells a story of woe; and one, if requested to travel a mile, will measure the perches and roods; but one does his stunt with a whistle or smile he's The Man Who Delivers the Goods. One man is afraid that he'll labor too hard—the world isn't yearning for such ; and one man is always alert, on his guard, lest he put in a minute too much; and one has a grouch or a temper that's bad, and one is a creature of moods; so it's hey for the joyous and rollicking lad-for the One Who Delivers the Goods !

Walt Mason. From "Walt Mason, His Book," Barse & Hopkins.

THE QUITTER

In the famous naval duel between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis, John Paul Jones was hailed by his adversary to know whether he struck his colors. “I have not yet begun to fight," was his answer. When the surrender took place, it was not Jones's ship that became the prize of war. Everybody admires a hard fighter-the man who takes buffets standing up, and in a spirit of “Never say die” is always ready for more.

WHE

HEN you're lost in the wild and you're scared

as a child, And death looks you bang in the eye; And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle

To cock your revolver and die.
But the code of a man says fight all you can,

And self-dissolution is barred;
In hunger and woe, oh it's easy to blow-

It's the hell served for breakfast that's hard.

You're sick of the game? Well now, that's a shame!

You're young and you're brave and you're bright. You've had a raw deal, I know, but don't squeal.

Buck up, do your damnedest and fight!
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,

So don't be a piker, old pard;
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit-

It's the keeping your chin up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten and die,

It's easy to crawfish and crawl,
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight,

Why, that's the best game of them all.
And though you come out of each grueling bout,

All broken and beaten and scarred
Just have one more try:

It's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping on living that's hard.

Robert W. Service.

From “Rhymes of a Rolling Stone,"
Dodd, Mead & Co.

FRIENDS OF MINE
We like to be hospitable. To what should we be more hose
pitable than a glad spirit or a kind impulse?
OOD-MORNING, Brother Sunshine,

,
I beg your humble pardon

If you've waited very long.
I thought I heard you rapping,

To shut you out were sin,
My heart is standing open,

GoGood-morning,' Sister Song,

Won't you

walk
right

in?
Good-morning, Brother Gladness,

Good-morning, Sister Smile,
They told me you were coming,

So I waited on a while.
I'm lonesome here without you,

A weary while it's been,
My heart is standing open,

Won't you

walk
right

in ?
Good-morning, Brother Kindness,

Good-morning, Sister Cheer,
I heard you were out calling,
So I waited for

you

here.
Some way, I keep forgetting

I have to toil or spin
When you are my companions,

Won't you

walk
right

in ?

James W. Foley.

Prom “The Voices of Song,"
E. P. Dutton & Co.