It Can Be Done Part 36

If you come to a place that you can't get _through,_ Or _over_ or _under_, the thing to do Is to find a way _round_ the impa.s.sable wall, Not say you'll go YOUR way or not at all.

You can always get to the place you're going, If you'll set your sails as the wind is blowing.

If the mountains are high, go round the valley; If the streets are blocked, go up some alley; If the parlor-car's filled, don't scorn a freight; If the front door's closed, go in the side gate.

To reach your goal this advice is sound: If you can't go over or under, go round!

_Joseph Morris._

THICK IS THE DARKNESS

How many of us forget when the sun goes down that it will rise again!

Thick is the darkness-- Sunward, O, sunward!

Rough is the highway-- Onward, still onward!

Dawn harbors surely East of the shadows.

Facing us somewhere Spread the sweet meadows.

Upward and forward!

Time will restore us: Light is above us, Rest is before us.

_William Ernest Henley._

THE BELLY AND THE MEMBERS

(ADAPTED FROM "CORIOLa.n.u.s")

No doubt the world is cursed with grafters and parasites--men who live off the body economic and give nothing substantial in return. But an appearance of uselessness is not always proof of such. We should not condemn men in ignorance. As old as Aesop is the fable of the rebellion of the other members of the body against the idle unproductiveness of the belly. In this pa.s.sage the fable is used as an answer to the plebeians of Rome who have complained that the patricians are merely an enc.u.mbrance.

There was a time when all the body's members Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it: That only like a gulf it did remain I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labor with the rest, where the other instruments Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, And, mutually partic.i.p.ant, did minister Unto the appet.i.te and affection common Of the whole body. Note me this, good friend; Your most grave belly was deliberate, Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered: "True is it, my incorporate friends," quoth he, "That I receive the general food at first, Which you do live upon; and fit it is; Because I am the store-house and the shop Of the whole body: but, if you do remember, I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain: And, through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves and small inferior veins From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live. Though all at once cannot See what I do deliver out to each, Yet I can make my audit up, that all From me do back receive the flour of all, And leave me but the bran." What say you to 't?

_William Shakespeare._

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

We may acquire the resolution to be happy by resting on a bed of roses.

If that fails us, we should try a bed of nettles.

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 G.o.d

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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d send his hail Or blinding fireb.a.l.l.s, 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.

"G.o.d! 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 G.o.d, 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.