He who hath never warred with misery, Nor ever tugged with fortune and distress, Hath had no'occasion nor no field to try The strength and forces of his worthiness; Those parts of judgment which felicity Keeps as concealed, affliction must express; And only men show their abilities, And what they are, in their extremities. The world had never taken so full note Of what thou art, hadst thou not been undone, And only thy affliction hath begot More fame than thy best fortunes could have done; For ever by adversity are wrought The greatest works of admiration, And all the fair examples of renown Out of distress and misery are grown. Mucius the fire, the tortures Regulus, Did make the miracles of faith and zeal; Exile renowned and graced Rutilius; Imprisonment and poison did reveal The worth of Socrates; Fabricius' Poverty did grace that commonweal More than all Sulla's riches got with strife; And Cato's death did vie with Caesar's life. Not to be'unhappy is unhappiness, And mis'ry not to have known misery; For the best way unto discretion is The way that leads us by adversity; And men are better showed what is amiss By th' expert finger of calamity Than they can be with all that fortune brings, Who never shows them the true face of things. How could we know that thou couldst have endured With a reposed cheer wrong and disgrace, And with a heart and countenance assured, Have looked stern death and horror in the face? How should we know thy soul had been secured In honest counsels and in ways unbase, Hadst thou not stood to show us what thou wert By thy affliction, that descried thy heart? It is not but the tempest that doth show The seaman's cunning; but the field that tries The captain's courage; and we come to know Best what men are in their worst jeopardies. For lo, how many have we seen to grow To high renown from lowest miseries, Out of the hands of death, and many a one T' have been undone had they not been undone. He that endures for what his conscience knows Not to be ill doth from a patience high Look only on the cause whereto he owes Those sufferings, not on his misery; The more he'endures, the more his glory grows, Which never grows from imbecility. Only the best composed and worthiest hearts God sets to act the hard'st and constant'st parts. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EGERTON MANUSCRIPT: 102 by THOMAS WYATT SIXTEEN DEAD MEN by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS A UTILITARIAN VIEW OF THE MONITOR'S FIGHT by HERMAN MELVILLE AN ORCHARD AT AVIGNON by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON THE COLLEGE, 1917 by HAMILTON FISH ARMSTRONG |