SINGLY we fight against enormous odds, -- Dulness, and Cowardice, and Fate, and Chance, And the wild bowman, purblind Ignorance, And heaven with all its lazy brood of gods; How, then, above the congregated clods, Can one man rise, and out of clay advance, Alone, against the sleepless countenance Of that huge Argus-host that never nods? So must we fall upon the fields of life, And bleed, and die? Nay, rather let us twain, Marching abreast, against that army move, Each harnessing the other for the strife, -- You with my will for helmet, and my brain For sword, while I for buckler bear your love. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODE FOR THE BURIAL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT LINES ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM [ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY 1796] by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE PSALM OF THOSE WHO GO FORTH BEFORE DAYLIGHT by CARL SANDBURG THE AGED LOVER RENOUNCETH LOVE by THOMAS VAUX FOR A RETURN by A. A. ANDRIELLO |