Berton Braley

Success"If you want a thing bad enoughTo go out and fight for it,Work day and night for it,Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for itIf only desire of itMakes you quite mad enoughNever to tire of it,Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for itIf life seems all empty and useless without itAnd all that you scheme and you dream is about it,If gladly you'll sweat for it,Fret for it,Plan for it,Lose all your terror of God or man for it,If you'll simply go after that thing that you want.With all your capacity,Strength and sagacity,Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,Nor sickness nor painOf body or brainCan turn you away from the thing that you want,If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,You'll get it!

Men crawl in slime and wallow in the mud;The Realist groans: "All life is mud ans slime!"Men lie and steal and shed each other's blood;And Realism sees but blood and crime.Yet Right is just as real as Wrong,The mountain peak is real as the ooze,A curse is no more real than a song;Among realities we need but choose.The cynic sees the failure of To-day,The Prophet cries the triumph of To-morrow,Knowing the spirit in our clogging clayThat masters doubt, disaster, loss and sorrow.Failure is but a passing weariness,There is no final answer but Success.