Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE, by BERTON BRALEY



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It isn't fun when your hopes seem finished
Last Line: If somehow or other you keep on going!
Subject(s): Courage; Valor; Bravery


("You keep on going—maybe you can't go much, but you do go a little."

From Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams.)

It isn't fun when your hopes seem finished
And all your visions have come to naught,
When your youth is gone and your strength diminished
And broken all of the dreams you've sought.
It isn't fun when your projects splendid,
Your castles in Spain all glad and glowing,
Crash down to ruin that can't be mended,
Yet, somehow or other, you keep on going!

It isn't fun when you know the glamour
Is gone from life, and little remains
But dull reality, dust and clamor,
And puny triumphs and plodding gains.
When life is a muddle of sad confusions,
A tangled puzzle beyond all knowing,
A mess of tarnished and cheap illusions—
Yet somehow or other you keep on going!

It seems no use, but you just keep plodding
Through force of habit; and then, and then—
You suddenly notice the flowers nodding
Along the side of the road again.
Though nevermore shall the hours be giving
The thrill you knew of the past's bestowing,
You'll come again to a zest in living
If somehow or other you keep on going!





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