YE that nourish hopes of fame! Ye who would be known in song! Ponder old history, and duly frame Your souls to meek acceptance of the thong. Lo! of hundreds who aspire, Eighties perish -- nineties tire! They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks, Were season'd by celestial hail of thwacks. Fortune in this mortal race Builds on thwackings for its base; Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff, And separates his heavenly corn from chaff. Think ye, had he never known Noorna a belabouring crone, Shibli Bagarag would have shaved Shagpat? The unthwack'd lives in chronicle a rat! 'Tis the thwacking in this den Maketh lions of true men! So are we nerved to break the clinging mesh Which tames the noblest efforts of poor flesh. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WISE WOMAN by SARA TEASDALE THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER by GEORGE CANNING THE DARK-EYED GENTLEMAN by THOMAS HARDY THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER by ALEXANDER POPE A PENNY'S WORTH OF POESY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS UHLAND by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD ABBEY by GEORGE GORDON BYRON YSOLTE by GEORGE FREDERICK CAMERON TO A YOUNG LADY WHO ASKED ME TO WRITE SOMETHING ORIGINAL FOR HER ALBUM by THOMAS CAMPBELL |