Rising.

The LADDER of ST. AUGUSTINE

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, 

      That of our vices we can frame 

A ladder, if we will but tread 

      Beneath our feet each deed of shame! 

All common things, each day's events, 

      That with the hour begin and end, 

Our pleasures and our discontents, 

      Are rounds by which we may ascend. 

The low desire, the base design, 

      That makes another's virtues less; 

The revel of the ruddy wine, 

      And all occasions of excess; 

The longing for ignoble things; 

      The strife for triumph more than truth; 

The hardening of the heart, that brings 

      Irreverence for the dreams of youth; 

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, 

      That have their root in thoughts of ill; 

Whatever hinders or impedes 

      The action of the nobler will; — 

All these must first be trampled down 

      Beneath our feet, if we would gain 

In the bright fields of fair renown 

      The right of eminent domain. 

We have not wings, we cannot soar; 

      But we have feet to scale and climb 

By slow degrees, by more and more, 

      The cloudy summits of our time. 

The mighty pyramids of stone 

      That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, 

When nearer seen, and better known, 

      Are but gigantic flights of stairs. 

The distant mountains, that uprear 

      Their solid bastions to the skies, 

Are crossed by pathways, that appear 

      As we to higher levels rise. 

The heights by great men reached and kept 

      Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 

      Were toiling upward in the night. 

Standing on what too long we bore 

      With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, 

We may discern — unseen before — 

      A path to higher destinies, 

Nor deem the irrevocable Past 

      As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 

If, rising on its wrecks, at last 

      To something nobler we attain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow