“The world is against me,” he said with a sigh. 
  “Somebody stops every scheme that I try. 
  The world has me down and it’s keeping me there;
  I don’t get a chance.  Oh, the world is unfair! 
  When a fellow is poor then he can’t get a show;
  The world is determined to keep him down low.”

  “What of Abe Lincoln?” I asked.  “Would you say
  That he was much richer than you are to-day? 
  He hadn’t your chance of making his mark,
  And his outlook was often exceedingly dark;
  Yet he clung to his purpose with courage most grim
  And he got to the top.  Was the world against him?

  “What of Ben Franklin?  I’ve oft heard it said
  That many a time he went hungry to bed. 
  He started with nothing but courage to climb,
  But patiently struggled and waited his time. 
  He dangled awhile from real poverty’s limb,
  Yet he got to the top.  Was the world against him?

  “I could name you a dozen, yes, hundreds, I guess,
  Of poor boys who’ve patiently climbed to success;
  All boys who were down and who struggled alone,
  Who’d have thought themselves rich if your fortune they’d known;
  Yet they rose in the world you’re so quick to condemn,
  And I’m asking you now, was the world against them?”

Edgar A. Guest.

From “Just Folks.”

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH

In any large or prolonged enterprise we are likely to take too limited a view of the progress we are making.  The obstacles do not yield at some given point; we therefore imagine we have made no headway.  The poet here uses three comparisons to show the folly of accepting this hasty and partial evidence.  A soldier may think, from the little part of the battle he can see, that the day is going against him; but by holding his ground stoutly he may help his comrades in another quarter to win the victory.  Successive waves may seem to rise no higher on the land, but far back in swollen creek and inlet is proof that the tide is coming in.  As we look toward the east, we are discouraged at the slowness of daybreak; but by looking westward we see the whole landscape illumined.

  Say not the struggle nought availeth,
    The labor and the wounds are vain,
  The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
    And as things have been they remain.

  If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
    It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
  Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
    And, but for you, possess the field.

  For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
    Seem here no painful inch to gain,
  Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
    Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

  And not by eastern windows only,
    When daylight comes, comes in the light,
  In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
    But westward, look, the land is bright.