Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/155

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ACT IN THE PRESENT.
137
If you cannot, in the conflict,
 Prove yourself a soldier true;
If, where the fire and smoke are thickest,
 There's no work for you to do;
When the battle-field is silent,
 Yon can go with careful tread,
You can bear away the wounded,
 You can cover up the dead.

If you cannot in the harvest,
 Garner up the richest sheaves:
Many a grain, both ripe and golden,
 Which the careless reaper leaves,
You can glean among the briers
 Growing rank against the wall,
F or it may be that their shadow
 Hides the heaviest wheat of all.

Do not, then, stand idly waiting
 For some greater work to do;
Fortune is a lazy goddess,
 She will never come to you.
Go and toil in any vineyard,
 Do not fear to do or dare;
If you want afield of labour,
 You can find it anywhere.

Act in the Present.
Heart gazing mournfully
 Back through past years,
Bringing sad memories,
 Laden with tears—
Life's hours wasted,
 Talents abused,
Bright opportunities
 Blindly refused—
Close up the record
 Fraught with such pain;
Years that have vanished
 Return not again.
Grasp thou the Present,
 Be earnest and bold—
Fleeting its moments,
 More precious than gold.

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.