"THOU THINKEST THOU HAST LIVED"
Thou thinkest thou hast lived
If fortune fair hath touched thee with its wand,
If thou hast known, but once, the top of life
In giving royally, in truly loving,
In braving some great deed in sight of men,
Or issuing victorious from strife.
Not so; nor hast of life the flower and hight
In suffering that others may go free.
For thee the sequent years still proudly hold
A keener sense of the rich depths of being,
When thou, brave novice, shalt endure the lore
Of fate's immeasurable ironies.
Thou may'st behold the scorn of thee and thine
Sit on the laureled brow of him thy hand
Helped to that heaven; yes, thou yet may'st see
Success, in them thou gavest strength to rise,
Used for thine own disfigurement and loss;
May'st know betrayal and forgetfulness,
And knowing shalt thy spirit hold in calm;
Pitying the arrogant, the meanly vain,
Unbitterly, and with no cloying hate,
Disdain, nor envy; comforted and blest
With the high thought of knowledge, worthily gained,
And the humility which makes men wise,
And the uncensured pride of purity.
THE GOOD MAN
What do you know of me, my gentlest one!
You who have watched my life from day to day
Through half a lifetime! Who have seen, indeed,
My comings and my goings; my dull years
In sunshine and in shade; in getting bread;
