When you’re lost in the wild and you’re scared as a child,
    And death looks you bang in the eye;
  And you’re sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle
    To cock your revolver and die. 
  But the code of a man says fight all you can,
    And self-dissolution is barred;
  In hunger and woe, oh it’s easy to blow—­
    It’s the hell served for breakfast that’s hard.

  You’re sick of the game?  Well now, that’s a shame! 
    You’re young and you’re brave and you’re bright. 
  You’ve had a raw deal, I know, but don’t squeal. 
    Buck up, do your damnedest and fight! 
  It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,
    So don’t be a piker, old pard;
  Just draw on your grit; it’s so easy to quit—­
    It’s the keeping your chin up that’s hard.

  It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten and die,
    It’s easy to crawfish and crawl,
  But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight,
    Why, that’s the best game of them all. 
  And though you come out of each grueling bout,
    All broken and beaten and scarred—­
  Just have one more try.  It’s dead easy to die,
    It’s the keeping on living that’s hard.

Robert W. Service.

From “Rhymes of a Rolling Stone.”

[Illustration:  ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE]

FRIENDS OF MINE

We like to be hospitable.  To what should we be more hospitable than a glad spirit or a kind impulse?

  Good-morning, Brother Sunshine,
    Good-morning, Sister Song,
  I beg your humble pardon
    If you’ve waited very long. 
  I thought I heard you rapping,
    To shut you out were sin,
  My heart is standing open,
    Won’t you
      walk
        right
          in?

  Good-morning, Brother Gladness,
    Good-morning, Sister Smile,
  They told me you were coming,
    So I waited on a while. 
  I’m lonesome here without you,
    A weary while it’s been,
  My heart is standing open,
    Won’t you
      walk
        right
          in?

  Good-morning, Brother Kindness,
    Good-morning, Sister Cheer,
  I heard you were out calling,
    So I waited for you here. 
  Some way, I keep forgetting
    I have to toil or spin
  When you are my companions,
    Won’t you
      walk
        right
          in?

James W. Foley.

From “The Voices of Song.”

THE WOMAN WHO UNDERSTANDS

“Is this the little woman that made this great war?” was Lincoln’s greeting to Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Often a woman is responsible for events by whose crash and splendor she herself is obscured.  Often too she shapes the career of husband or brother or son.  A man succeeds and reaps the honors of public applause, when in truth a quiet little woman has made it all possible—­has by her tact and encouragement held him to his best, has had faith in him when his own faith has languished, has cheered him with the unfailing assurance, “You can, you must, you will.”