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...HOLY CROSS DAY by ROBERT BROWNING EYES AND TEARS by ANDREW MARVELL MOTHER TO SON by IRENE RUTHERFORD MCLEOD TO-NIGHT by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON TO QUILCA; A COUNTRY HOUSE IN NO GOOD REPAIR by JONATHAN SWIFT THE LAY OF ST. ODILLE by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM THE CONTRAST; THE SUNNY SIDE by LEVI BISHOP THE WANDERER: 3. IN ENGLAND: THE LAST TIME THAT I MET LADY RUTH by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |