He sang of joy; whate'er he knew of sadness
He kept for his own heart's peculiar share:
So well he sang, the world imagined gladness
To be sole tenant there.
For dreams were his, and in the dawn's fair shining,
His spirit soared beyond the mounting lark;
But from his lips no accent of repining
Fell when the days grew dark;
And though contending long dread Fate to master,
He failed at last her enmity to cheat,
He turned with such a smile to face disaster
That he sublimed defeat.
Florence Earle Coates.
From "Poems."
WILL
"I can resist anything but temptation," says a character in one of Oscar Wilde's plays. Too many of us have exactly this strength of will. We perhaps do not fall into gross crime, but because of our flabby resolution our lives become purposeless, negative, negligible. No one would miss us in particular if we were out of the way.
I
O well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong.
For him nor moves the loud world's random mock;
Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,
That, compass'd round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd.