Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/73

Rh To make the joke worth while. Contrariwise, When I review some faces I have known— Sad faces, hungry faces—and reflect On thoughts I might have moulded, human words I might have said, straightway it saddens me To feel perforce that had I not been mute And actionless, I might have made them bright Somehow, though only for the moment. Yes, Howbeit I confess the vanities, It saddens me;—and sadness, of all things Miscounted wisdom, and the most of all When warmed with old illusions and regrets, I mark the selfishest, and on like lines The shrewdest. For your sadness makes you climb With dragging footsteps, and it makes you groan; It hinders you when most you would be free, And there are many days it wearies you Beyond the toil itself. And if the load It lays on you may not be shaken off Till you have known what now you do not know— Meanwhile you climb; and he climbs best who sees Above him truth burn faithfulest, and feels Within him truth burn purest. Climb or fall,