When you stand within Life’s limelight to declaim your little piece—
Let your hearers chip and chivvy as they may—
And you go on nigh despairing, ’neath your mummer-paint and grease,
As you massacre the part you have to play:
_You may come before the curtain
And erect your ragged crest,
If you’re absolutely certain
That you’ve done your level best!_
If you’re put away like lumber, on the very topmost shelf,
And the phalanx of Success’s pets condemn,
Just remember most approval worth a cent comes from yourself,
And heave brick for brick, “Old Failure!” back at them:
_For no matter how they mutter,
You are worthy as the rest,
When you’re lying in the gutter,
If the gutter is your best!_
[Illustration:
_“Where no scallywag or sinner
May be counted as a guest.”_]
Mark the “pity for a failure!” as the motor-hog whisks by,
And the derelict steps quickly from his path:
See the supercilious patronage that lights the preacher’s eye!
As he maunders of a glowing aftermath,
_Where no scallywag or sinner
May be counted as a guest
When the trumpet sounds for dinner—
Though he did his level best!_
Never mind, old Rags and Tatters! when you reach the “golden stairs,”
You may meet a Godlike cobber, who will say,
“Though you’ve hobnobbed with the Devil, and forgot your vesper prayers,
You were only as I fashioned forth your clay—
_Whether scoffer who denied Me,
Or a saint who beat his breast,
Only he may stand beside me
Who has done his level best!”_