Can’t is the word that is foe to ambition,
    An enemy ambushed to shatter your will;
  Its prey is forever the man with a mission
    And bows but to courage and patience and skill. 
  Hate it, with hatred that’s deep and undying,
    For once it is welcomed ’twill break any man;
  Whatever the goal you are seeking, keep trying
    And answer this demon by saying:  “I can.”

Edgar A. Guest.

From “A Heap o’ Livin’.”

THE STRUGGLE

We all dream of being St. Georges and fighting dragons amid glamor and glory and the applause of the world.  But our real fights are mostly commonplace, routine battles, where no great victory is ours at the end of the day.  To persist in them requires quiet strength and unfaltering courage.

  Did you ever want to take your two bare hands,
    And choke out of the world your big success? 
  Beat, torn fists bleeding, pathways rugged, grand,
    By sheer brute strength and bigness, nothing less? 
  So at the last, triumphant, battered, strong,
    You might gaze down on what you choked and beat,
  And say, “Ah, world, you’ve wrought to do me wrong;
    And thus have I accepted my defeat.”

  Have you ever dreamed of virile deeds, and vast,
    And then come back from dreams with wobbly knees,
  To find your way (the braver vision past),
    By picking meekly at typewriter keys;
  By bending o’er a ledger, day by day,
    By some machine-like drudging?  No great woe
  To grapple with.  Slow, painful is the way,
    And still, the bravest fight and conquer so.

Miriam Teichner.

HOLD FAST

A football coach who told his players that their rivals were too strong for them would be seeking a new position the next year.  If the opposing team is formidable, he says so; if his men have their work cut out for them, he admits it; but he mentions these things as incitements to effort.  Merely saying of victory that it can be won is among the surest ways of winning it.

  When you’re nearly drowned in trouble, and the world is dark as ink;
    When you feel yourself a-sinking ’neath the strain,
  And you think, “I’ve got to holler ‘Help!’” just take another breath
    And pretend you’ve lost your voice—­and can’t complain! 
      (That’s the idea!)
    Pretend you’ve lost your voice and can’t complain!

  When the future glowers at you like a threatening thunder cloud,
    Just grit your teeth and bend your head and say: 
  “It’s dark and disagreeable and I can’t help feeling blue,
    But there’s coming sure as fate a brighter day!”
      (Say it slowly!)
    “But there’s coming sure as fate, a brighter day!”