Start the Day Right

From the Washington Standard, July 11, 1913.
 

 Start the day right. When the sun comes to greet you
     Give it a smile for each ray that it sends.
 Shake off the worries that long to defeat you,
     Strengthen your faith in yourself and your friends.
 Yesterday’s ghost will be striving to haunt you;
     Yesterday’s errors may come to your brain.
 Throw off the worries that trouble and taunt you.
     Start the day right; begin over again.
 
 What a brief span is the longest existence,
     One flashing journey from nothing to night!
 Show while you may the old Roman resistance—
     Off with your drowsiness—into the fight!
 Never an empire was won by the laggard;
     Never a prize was obtained but by worth.
 Heed not the sneers of the misanthropes haggard.
     Start the day right and they’ll know you’re on earth.
 
 Start the day right and you’ll find as it passes
     Something to live for and something to love.
 View not the future through indigo glasses.
     Note the bright streams and the blue skies above.
 Failure may mock you through years of endeavor,
     Fame and success may not come at your will,
 But nothing can baffle a climber forever.
     Start the day right and you’re half up the hill.