A CREED
Let others frame their creeds; mine is to work;To do my best, however far it fallBelow the keener craft of stronger hands:To be myself, full-hearted, free, and trueTo what my own soul sees, below, above;To think my thought straight-forward from the heart;To feel, and be, and never stop to ask:“Do all men so? Is this the World’s highway?”To look unflinching in the face of lifeAs eagles look upon the noonday sun;To cut my own path through primeval woods;To lay my own course by the polar starAcross the trackless plains and mountains vast;To seek, not follow, ever to the end.And for the rest—bare-handed have I comeInto this world, I know not whence nor why;Bare-handed and alone and unafraid,With heart of fire and eyes that question still,Will I go forth into the wide Beyond;As went the men who bore my blood of oldTo prove their dream of Heaven, or dare their Hell.