If I have faltered more or less
  In my great task of happiness;
  If I have moved among my race
  And shown no glorious morning face;
  If beams from happy human eyes
  Have moved me not; if morning skies,
  Books, and my food, and summer rain
  Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:—­
  Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
  And stab my spirit broad awake;
  Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
  Choose thou, before that spirit die,
  A piercing pain, a killing sin,
  And to my dead heart run them in!

Robert Louis Stevenson.

MAN, BIRD, AND GOD

Robert Bruce, despairing of his country’s cause, was aroused to new hope and purpose by the sight of a spider casting its lines until at last it had one that held.  In the following passage the poet, uncertain as to his own future, yet trusts the providence which guides the birds in their long and uncharted migrations.

  I go to prove my soul! 
  I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
  I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
  I ask not:  but unless God send his hail
  Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
  In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: 
  He guides me and the bird.  In his good time!

Robert Browning.

HIS ALLY

The thought of this poem is that a man’s best helper may be that which gives him no direct aid at all—­a sense of humor.

  He fought for his soul, and the stubborn fighting
    Tried hard his strength. 
  “One needs seven souls for this long requiting,”
    He said at length.

  “Six times have I come where my first hope jeered me
    And laughed me to scorn;
  But now I fear as I never feared me
    To fall forsworn.

  “God! when they fight upright and at me
    I give them back
  Even such blows as theirs that combat me;
    But now, alack!

  “They fight with the wiles of fiends escaping
    And underhand. 
  Six times, O God, and my wounds are gaping! 
    I—­reel to stand.

  “Six battles’ span!  By this gasping breath
    No pantomime. 
  Tis all that I can.  I am sick unto death. 
    And—­a seventh time?

  “This is beyond all battles’ soreness!”
    Then his wonder cried;
  For Laughter, with shield and steely harness,
    Stood up at his side!

William Rose Benet,

From “Merchants from Cathay.”

SUBMISSION

There are times when the right thing to do is to submit.  There are times when the right thing is to strive, to fight.  To put forth one’s best effort is itself a reward.  But sometimes it brings a material reward also.  The frog that after falling into the churn found that it couldn’t jump out and wouldn’t try, was drowned.  The frog that kept leaping in brave but seemingly hopeless endeavor at last churned the milk, mounted the butter for a final effort, and escaped.