Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/155

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ACT IN THE PRESENT.
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If you cannot, in the conflict, Prove yourself a soldier true;If, where the fire and smoke are thickest, There's no work for you to do;When the battle-field is silent, Yon can go with careful tread,You can bear away the wounded, You can cover up the dead.
If you cannot in the harvest, Garner up the richest sheaves:Many a grain, both ripe and golden, Which the careless reaper leaves,You can glean among the briers Growing rank against the wall,F or it may be that their shadow Hides the heaviest wheat of all.
Do not, then, stand idly waiting For some greater work to do;Fortune is a lazy goddess, She will never come to you.Go and toil in any vineyard, Do not fear to do or dare;If you want afield of labour, You can find it anywhere.
Act in the Present.
Heart gazing mournfully Back through past years,Bringing sad memories, Laden with tears—Life's hours wasted, Talents abused,Bright opportunities Blindly refused—Close up the record Fraught with such pain;Years that have vanished Return not again.Grasp thou the Present, Be earnest and bold—Fleeting its moments, More precious than gold.
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