Good day! Good cheer! Good-bye! For then
We part and may not meet again!
James W. Foley.
From "Friendly Rhymes,"
E. P. Dutton & Co.
"Faint heart never won fair lady.” Mistress Fate herself should be courted, not with feminine finesse, but with masculine courage and aggression.
FL
LOUT her power, young man !
She is merely shrewish, scolding,-
She is plastic to your molding,
She is woman in her yielding to the fires desires fan.
Flout her power, young man!
Fight her fair, strong man!
Such a serpent love is this,-
Bitter wormwood in her kiss!
When she strikes, be nerved and ready;
Keep your gaze both bright and steady,
Chance no rapier-play, but hotly press the quarrel she
began!
Fight her fair, strong man!
Gaze her down, old man!
Now no laughter may defy her,
Not a shaft of scorn come nigh her,
But she waits within the shadows, in dark shadows very
near. And her silence is your fear. Meet her world-old eyes of warning! Gaze them down
with courage! Can
You gaze them down, old man?
William Rose Benét.
From “Merchants from Cathay,"
Yale University Press.
SLEEP AND THE MONARCH
(FROM "2 HENRY IV.”)
The great elemental blessings cannot be “cornered.” Indeed they cannot be bought at all, but are the natural property of the man whose ways of life are such as to retain them. In this passage a disappointed and harassed king comments on the slumber which he cannot woo to his couch, yet which his humblest subject enjoys.
Howarany this hsar asleepy Posleep! to gentle sleep!
OW thousand of my poorest subjects
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum bell ?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamor in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes ?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE To borrow trouble is to contract a debt that any man is better without. If your troubles are not borrowed, they are not likely to be many or great.
I
USED to hear a saying
That had a deal of pith;
It gave a cheerful spirit
To face existence with,
Especially when matters
Seemed doomed to go askew.
'Twas Never trouble trouble
Till trouble troubles you.
Not woes at hand, those coming
Are hardest to resist;
We hear them stalk like giants,
We see them through a mist.
But big things in the brewing
Are small things in the brew;
So never trouble trouble
Till trouble troubles you.
Just look at things through glasses
That show the evidence;
One lens of them is courage,
The other common sense.
They'll make it clear, misgivings
Are just a bugaboo;
No more you'll trouble trouble
Till trouble troubles you.
Humanity is always meeting obstacles. All honor to the men who do not fear obstacles, but push them aside and press on. Stephenson was explaining his idea that a locomotive steam engine could run along a track and draw cars after it. "But suppose a cow gets on the track," some one objected. “So much the worse,” said Stephenson, "for the coo.'
EN of thought! be up and stirring,
Night and day;
Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain,
Clear the way!
Men of action, aid and cheer them,
As ye may !
There's a fount about to stream,
There's a light about to gleam,
There's a warmth about to glow,
There's a flower about to blow;
There's midnight blackness changing
Into gray!
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!
Once the welcome light has broken,
Who shall say
What the unimagined glories
Of the day?
What the evil that shall perish
In its ray?
Aid it, hopes of honest men;
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, paper, aid it, type,
Aid it, for the hour is ripe;
And our earnest must not slacken
Into play.
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!
Lo! a cloud's about to vanish
From the day;
And a brazen wrong to crumble
Into clay!
With the Right shall many more
Enter, smiling at the door ;
With the giant Wrong shall fall
Many others great and small,
That for ages long have held us
For their prey.
Men of thought and men of action,
Clear the way!
Charles Mackay.
We need not expect much of the man who, when defeated, gives way either to despair or to a wild impulse for immediate revenge. But from the man who stores up his strength quietly and bides his time for a new effort, we may expect everything.
NOW
TOW, think you, Life, I am defeated quite ?
More than a single battle shall be mine
Before I yield the sword and give the sign
And turn, a crownless outcast, to the night.
Wounded, and yet unconquered in the fight,
I wait in silence till the day may shine
Once more upon my strength, and all the line
Of your defenses break before my might.
Mine be that warrior's blood who, stricken sore,
Lies in his quiet chamber till he hears
Afar the clash and clang of arms, and knows
The cause he lived for calls for him once more;
And straightway rises, whole and void of fears,
And arméd, turns him singing to his foes.
Theodosia Garrison.
From "The Earth Cry,"
Mitchell Kennerley.
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