Living

If through the years we're not to do

Much finer deeds than we have done;

If we must merely wander through

Time's garden, idling in the sun;

If there is nothing big ahead,

Why do we fear to join the dead?

Unless to-morrow means that we

Shall do some needed service here;

That tasks are waiting you and me

That will be lost, save we appear;

Then why this dreadful thought of sorrow

That we may never see to-morrow?

If all our finest deeds are done,

And all our splendor's in the past;

If there's no battle to be won,

What matter if to-day's our last?

Is life so sweet that we would live

Though nothing back to life we give?

It is not greatness to have clung

To life through eighty fruitless years;

The man who dies in action, young,

Deserves our praises and our cheers,

Who ventures all for one great deed

And gives his life to serve life's need.