It Can Be Done Part 44

MY WAGE

We may as well aim high as low, ask much as little. The world will not miss what it gives us, and our reward will largely be governed by our demands.

I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store;

For Life is a just employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have paid.

_Jessie B. Rittenhouse._

From "The Door of Dreams."

THE GIFT

"Trust thyself," says Emerson; "every heart vibrates to that iron string." This is wholesome and inspiring advice, but there is, as always, another side to the question. Many a man falls into absurdities and mistakes because he cannot get outside of himself and look at himself from other people's eyes. We should cultivate the ability to see everything, including ourselves, from more than one standpoint.

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion; What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, And ev'n devotion!

_Robert Burns._

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

In the poem from which this excerpt is taken, Prometheus the t.i.tan has been cruelly tortured for opposing the malignant will of Jupiter. In the end Prometheus wins a complete outward victory. Better still, by his steadfastness and high purpose he has won a great inward triumph. The spirit that has actuated him and the nature of his achievement are expressed in the following lines.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, t.i.tan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

_Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley._

VICTORY IN DEFEAT

The great, radiant souls of earth--the Davids, the Shakespeares, the Lincolns--know grief and affliction as well as joy and triumph. But adversity is never to them mere adversity; it

"Doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange";

and in the crucible of character their suffering itself is trans.m.u.ted into song.

Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out.

When the great oak is straining in the wind, The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come To stretch out s.p.a.ces in the heart for joy.

_Edwin Markham._

From "The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems."

THE RICHER MINES

No man is so poor but that he is a stockholder. Yet many a man has no real riches; his stocks draw dividends in dollars and cents only.

When it comes to buying shares In the mines of earth, May I join the millionaires Who are rich in mirth.

Let me have a heavy stake In fresh mountain air-- I will promise now to take All that you can spare.

When you're setting up your claim In the Mines of Glee, Don't forget to use my name-- You can count on me.

Nothing better can be won, Freer from alloy, Than a bouncing claim in "Con- Solidated Joy."

You can have your Copper Stocks Gold and tin and coal-- What I'd have within my box Has to do with Soul.

_John Kendrick Bangs._

From "Songs of Cheer."

BRAVE LIFE

To be absolutely without physical fear may not be the highest courage; to shrink and quake, and yet stand at one's post, may be braver still.