Twel I’s got a turble empty feel right whur I wears muh hat? 
De traffic soht o’ nacherly keeps gittin’ in de road. 
I blow muh nose a-plenty, but
it
won’t
stay
blowed.

“What’s de use ob raisin’ chickens ef dey won’t stay riz? 
What’s de use ob freezin’ sherbet ef it won’t stay friz? 
What’s de use ob payin’ debts off ef dey’s gwine stay owed? 
What’s de use ob blowin’ noses ef dey won’t stay blowed?”

This old world is sometimes jealous of the chap who means to rise;
It sneers at what he’s doing or it bats him ’twixt the eyes;
It trips him when he’s careless, and it makes his way so hard
What’s left of him is sinew, not a walking tub of lard;
But it’s only wasting effort, for by George, the guy keeps on
When his hopes have crumbled round him and you’d think his faith was gone,
Till the world at last knocks under and it passes him a crown: 
Once, twice, thrice it has upset him, but
he
won’t
stay
down.

What cares he when out he’s flattened by the cruel blow it deals? 
He has rubber in his shoulders and a mainspring in his heels. 
Let the world uncork its buffets till he’s bruised from toe to crown;
Let it thump him, bump him, dump him, but he won’t stay down.

St. Clair Adams.

THE RAINBOW

Our lives are not a hodge-podge of separate experiences, though they sometimes seem so.  They are held together by simple things which we behold again and again with the same emotions.  Thus the man is what the boy has been; the tree is inclined in the precise direction the twig was bent.

  My heart leaps up when I behold
  A rainbow in the sky: 
  So was it when my life began;
  So is it now I am a man;
  So be it when I shall grow old,
    Or let me die! 
  The Child is father of the Man;
  And I could wish my days to be
  Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth.

THE FIRM OF GRIN AND BARRETT

It has been said that when disaster overtakes us, we can do one of two things—­we can grin and bear it, or we needn’t grin.  The spirit that keeps a smile on our faces when our burden is heaviest is the spirit that will win in the long run.  Many men know how to take success quietly.  The real test of a man is he way he takes failure.

  No financial throe volcanic
    Ever yet was known to scare it;
  Never yet was any panic
    Scared the firm of Grin and Barrett. 
  From the flurry and the fluster,
    From the ruin and the crashes,
  They arise in brighter lustre,
    Like the phoenix from his ashes. 
  When the banks and corporations
    Quake with fear, they do not share it;
  Smiling through all perturbations
    Goes the firm of Grin and Barrett. 
        Grin and Barrett,
        Who can scare it? 
    Scare the firm of Grin and Barrett?