It Can Be Done Part 13

From "Poems."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY]

MY PHILOSOPHY

Though dogs persist in barking at the moon, the moon's business is not to answer the dogs or to waste strength placating them, but simply to shine. The man who strives or succeeds is sure to be criticized. Is he therefore to abstain from all effort? We are responsible for our own lives and cannot regulate them according to other people's ideas. "Whoso would be a man," says Emerson, "must be a nonconformist."

I allus argy that a man Who does about the best he can Is plenty good enugh to suit This lower mundane inst.i.tute-- No matter ef his daily walk Is subject fer his neghbor's talk, And critic-minds of ev'ry whim Jest all git up and go fer him!

It's natchurl enugh, I guess, When some gits more and some gits less, Fer them-uns on the slimmest side To claim it ain't a fare divide; And I've knowed some to lay and wait, And git up soon, and set up late, To ketch some feller they could hate For goin' at a faster gait.

My doctern is to lay aside Contensions, and be satisfied: Jest do your best, and praise er blame That follers that, counts jest the same.

I've allus noticed grate success Is mixed with troubles, more er less, And it's the man who does the best That gits more kicks than all the rest.

_James Whitcomb Riley._

From the Biographical Edition Of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley.

ULYSSES

This volume consists chiefly of contemporary or very recent verse. But it could not serve its full purpose without the presence, here and there, of older poems--of "cla.s.sics." These express a truth, a mood, or a spirit that is universal, and they express it in words of n.o.ble dignity and beauty. They are not always easy to understand; they are crops we must patiently cultivate, not crops that volunteer. But they wear well; they grow upon us; we come back to them again and again, and still they are fresh, living, significant--not empty, meaningless, and weather-worn, like a last year's crow's nest.

Such a poem is _Ulysses_. It is shot through and through with the spirit of strenuous and never-ceasing endeavor--a spirit manifest in a hero who has every temptation to rest and enjoy. Ulysses is old. After ten long years of warfare before Troy, after endless misfortunes on his homeward voyage, after travels and experiences that have taken him everywhere and shown him everything that men know and do, he has returned to his rude native kingdom. He is reunited with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. He is rich and famous. Yet he is unsatisfied. The task and routine of governing a slow, materially minded people, though suited to his son's temperament, are unsuited to his. He wants to wear out rather than to rust out. He wants to discover what the world still holds. He wants to drink life to the lees. The morning has pa.s.sed, the long day has waned, twilight and the darkness are at hand. But scant as are the years left to him, he will use them in a last, incomparable quest. He rallies his old comrades--tried men who always

"With a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine"--

and asks them to brave with him once more the hazards and the hardships of the life of vast; unsubdued enterprise.

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That h.o.a.rd, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on sh.o.r.e, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known,--cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,-- And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains; but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and h.o.a.rd myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,-- Well-beloved of me, discerning to fulfil This labor, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household G.o.ds, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,-- That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads,--you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.

Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of n.o.ble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with G.o.ds.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,-- One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

_Alfred Tennyson._

PREPAREDNESS

For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike: When you are the anvil, bear-- When you are the hammer, strike.

_Edwin Markham._

From "The Gates of Paradise, and Other Poems."

THE WISDOM OF FOLLY

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a."

Shakespeare's lilting stanza conveys a great truth--the power of cheerfulness to give impetus and endurance. The _a_ at the end of lines is merely an addition in singing; the word _hent_ means take.

The cynics say that every rose Is guarded by a thorn which grows To spoil our posies; But I no pleasure therefore lack; I keep my hands behind my back When smelling roses.

Though outwardly a gloomy shroud The inner half of every cloud Is bright and shining: I therefore turn my clouds about, And always wear them inside out To show the lining.

My modus operandi this-- To take no heed of what's amiss; And not a bad one; Because, as Shakespeare used to say, A merry heart goes twice the way That tires a sad one.

_Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.

(The Honorable Mrs. Alfred Felkin.)_