Defeat may serve as well as victory
  To shake the soul and let the glory out. 
  When the great oak is straining in the wind,
  The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk
  Sends down a deeper root on the windward side. 
  Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
  Can know the mighty rapture.  Sorrows come
  To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Edwin Markham.

From “The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems.”

THE RICHER MINES

No man is so poor but that he is a stockholder.  Yet many a man has no real riches; his stocks draw dividends in dollars and cents only.

  When it comes to buying shares
    In the mines of earth,
  May I join the millionaires
    Who are rich in mirth.

  Let me have a heavy stake
    In fresh mountain air—­
  I will promise now to take
    All that you can spare.

  When you’re setting up your claim
    In the Mines of Glee,
  Don’t forget to use my name—­
    You can count on me.

  Nothing better can be won,
    Freer from alloy,
  Than a bouncing claim in “Con-
    Solidated Joy.”

  You can have your Copper Stocks
    Gold and tin and coal—­
  What I’d have within my box
    Has to do with Soul.

John Kendrick Bangs.

From “Songs of Cheer.”

BRAVE LIFE

To be absolutely without physical fear may not be the highest courage; to shrink and quake, and yet stand at one’s post, may be braver still.  So of success.  It lies less in the attainment of some external end than in holding yourself to your purposes and ideals; for out of high loyalty and effort comes that intangible thing called character, which is no mere symbol of success, but success itself.

  I do not know what I shall find on out beyond the final fight;
  I do not know what I shall meet beyond the last barrage of night;
  Nor do I care—­but this I know—­if I but serve within the fold
  And play the game—­I’ll be prepared for all the endless years may hold.

  Life is a training camp at best for what may wait beyond the years;
  A training camp of toiling days and nights that lean to dreams and tears;
  But each may come upon the goal, and build his soul above all Fate
  By holding an unbroken faith and taking Courage for a mate.

  Is not the fight itself enough that man must look to some behest? 
  Wherein does Failure miss Success if all engaged but do their best? 
  Where does the Victor’s cry come in for wreath of fame or laureled brow
  If one he vanquished fought as well as weaker muscle would allow?

If my opponent in the fray should prove to be a stronger foe—­
Not of his making—­but because the Destinies ordained it so;
If he should win—­and I should lose—­although I did my utmost part,
Is my reward the less than his if he should strive with equal heart?