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The Better Part
- ’TIS weary treading every day
- The same dull, dreary, uphill way,
- While the desired and the divine
- So fair and far above us shine—
- As unattainable as dear
- To us who grope and stumble here.
- ’Tis hard to hold our flag on high,
- And never faint, until we die—
- To spread our banner on a wind
- Scented with garlands left behind:
- To give up all life’s joy, that we
- May humble banner‐bearers be.
- ’Tis hard to sing, in faith, of light
- Through endless seeming hours of night—
- To tune the harp, the voice upraise
- For Freedom’s sake, for Honour’s praise—
- To sing of good that is, not seems—
- To sing of duties, not of dreams.
- ’Tis hard to fix one’s sleepy eyes
- On faint, faint streaks of new sunrise,
- When all one’s being yearns to weep
- Its tiredness out, and turn to sleep:
- Sleep and forget, and cease to care
- If sunrise be, if darkness were.
- ’Tis weary fighting all one’s life
- In one long, bitter, desperate strife,
- The hydra‐headed, rampant wrong,
- When one is fain of dance and song—
- To smell the rose, and hear the fair
- Soft wings of Pleasure in the air.
- Yet would we choose the weary way,
- The fighting, not the feasting day—
- To wear the armour, not the flowers,
- To sing of Truth while voice is ours;
- Because good fight’s worst wounds are far
- More dear than any pleasures are.
