Live Bravely

Live Bravely

The world is half-darkened with the croakers,

Whose burdens are weighing them down;

They croak of their stars and ill-usage.

And grope in the ditch for a crown.

Why talk to the wind of thy fortune,

Or clutch at distinction and gold?

If thou canst not reach high on the ladder,

Thou canst steady its base by thy hold.

For the flower thou hidst in the corner

Will as faultlessly finish its bloom,

Will reach for a sparkle of sunshine,

That clouds have not chanced to consume;

And wouldst thou be less than a flower,

With thought, and a brain, and a hand?

Wilt wait for the dripples of fortune,

When there's something that these may command?

There is food to be won from the furrow,

And forests that wait to be hewn;

There is marble untouched by the chisel,

Days that break not on the forehead of June.

Will you let the plow rust in the furrow—

Unbuilded a house or a hall—

Nor bid the stones wake from their silence,

And fret as if fretting were all?

Go learn from the blossoms and ant-hills,

There's something thy labor must give;

Like the beacn that pierces the tempest,

Strike the clod from thy footing, and live.

Live—not trail with thy face in the dross-heap,

In the track of the brainless and proud;

Lift the cerements away from thy manhood—

Thou art robbing the dead of a shroud.

There are words and pens to be wielded,

There are thoughts that must di if unsaid;

Wouldst thou saunter and pine amid roses,

Or sepulchre dreams that are dead?

No! drag the hope to the pyre—

Dreams dead from the ashes will rise;

Look not down on earth for its shadow,

There is sunlight for thee in the skies.

Unattributed

1:24, p. 1

12.31.1859