When the burden grows heavy, and rough is the way, <br />When you falter and slip, and it isn't your day, <br />And your best doesn't measure to what is required, <br />When you know in your heart that you're fast growing tired, <br />With the odds all against you, there's one thing to do: <br />That is, call on your courage and see the thing through. <br /> <br />Who battles for victory ventures defeat. <br />Misfortune is something we all have to meet ; <br />Take the loss with the grace you would take in the gain. <br />When things go against you, don't whine or complain; <br />Just call on your courage and grin if you can. <br />Though you fail to succeed, do not fail as a man. <br /> <br />There are dark days and stormy, which come to us all, <br />When about us in ruin our hopes seem to fall. <br />But stand to whatever you happen to meet— <br />We must all drink the bitter as well as the sweet. <br />And the test of your courage is: What do you do <br />In the hour when reverses are coming to you. <br /> <br />Never changed is the battle by curse or regret, <br />Though you whimper and whine, still the end must be met <br />And who fights a good fight, though he struggle in vain, <br />Shall have many a vict'ry to pay for his pain. <br />So take your reverses as part of the plan <br />Which God has devised for creating a man.<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/courage-courage-courage/
