Young man,
What is your plan
Of progress? Are you
Going to pull through?
Or will you lie down in the road
And let your load
Sink you out of sight in the mud?
Have you white blood and pale,
That curdles at the hard word “Fail,”
And dares not face
The chances of the race?
Or, have you red, clear red,
The good strong color
All the great have shed
In deed or thought,
For every triumph wrought
Out of what seemed full
Of the impossible?
Have you the nerve
To serve
Until you can master? To wait
And work outside the gate
Until you win
The strength to open it and enter in?
Have you the heart to meet
Defeat
Day after day,
And yet hold to the way
That upward leads,
And must needs
Be hard and rough
To make man tough
Of sinew and of soul,
Before he sees the goal?
Young man,
Think on these things,
What each one brings
Is as you choose it;
You make take
The stake,
Or you may lose it.
Start in
To win
And keep straight in the way
Unflagging to the end;
Whatever it may be
Is victory.
--WILLIAM J. LAMPTON, _Success_.
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