It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration | Page 3

Kiser

Victory....................................
Miriam Teichner
Victory in Defeat.......................... Edwin
Markham

Wanted--a Man.............................. St.

Clair Adams
Welcome Man, The........................... Walt
Mason
What Dark Days Do.......................... Everard
Jack Appleton
When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted....... Rudyard
Kipling
When Nature Wants a Man.................... Angela
Morgan
Will....................................... Alfred
Tennyson
Will....................................... Ella
Wheeler Wilcox
Wisdom of Folly, The....................... Ellen
Thorneycroft Fowler
Wishing.................................... Ella
Wheeler Wilcox
Woman Who Understands, The................. Everard
Jack Appleton
Word, The.................................. John
Kendrick Bangs
Work.......................................
Angela Morgan
Work....................................... Henry
Van Dyke
World Is Against Me, The................... Edgar
A. Guest
Worth While................................ Ella
Wheeler Wilcox

You May Count That Day..................... George
Eliot
Your Mission............................... Ellen
M.H. Gates
IT CAN BE DONE
BE THE BEST OF WHATEVER YOU ARE

We all dream of great deeds and high positions, away from the
pettiness and humdrum of ordinary life. Yet success is not occupying a
lofty place or doing conspicuous work; it is being the best that is in you.
Rattling around in too big a job is much worse than filling a small one
to overflowing. Dream, aspire by all means; but do not ruin the life you
must lead by dreaming pipe-dreams of the one you would like to lead.
Make the most of what you have and are. Perhaps your trivial,
immediate task is your one sure way of proving your mettle. Do the
thing near at hand, and great things will come to your hand to be done.
If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill
Be a scrub in the
valley--but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush
if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway some
happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass--
But the
liveliest bass in the lake!
We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for
all of us here.
There's big work to do and there's lesser to do,
And
the task we must do is the near.
If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be
a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail--
Be the best of
whatever you are!
Douglas Malloch.
THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
This poem has as its keynote friendship and sympathy for other people.
It is a paradox of life that by hoarding love and happiness we lose them,
and that only by giving them away can we keep them for ourselves.
The more we share, the more we possess. We of course find in other
people weaknesses and sins, but our best means of curing these are
through a wise and sympathetic understanding.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men
go by--
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good
and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the
cynic's ban;--
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be
a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the
highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The
men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their
smiles nor their tears--
Both parts of an infinite plan;--
Let me live
in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
And mountains of
wearisome height;
And the road passes on through the long afternoon

And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the
travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live
in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the race of
men go by--
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are
strong, Wise, foolish--so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's
seat
Or hurl the cynic's ban?--
Let me live in my house by the side
of the road
And be a friend to man.
Sam Walter Foss.
From "Dreams in Homespun."
FOUR THINGS
What are the qualities of ideal manhood? Various people have given
various answers to this question. Here the poet states what qualities he
thinks indispensable.
Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:


To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow-men
sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and
Heaven securely.
Henry Van Dyke.
From "Collected Poems."
IF
The central idea of this poem is that success comes from self-control
and a true sense of the values of things. In extremes lies danger. A man
must not lose heart because of doubts or opposition,