The Fighting Blood

From The Washington Herald, April 6, 1913.
 By C. P. McDonald.
 

 Into the maelstrom of Rosy Thoughts and into the Valley of Dreams
 He entered, a youth with a happy heart, to follow life’s rainbow gleams;
 Ever and ever he looked ahead toward the glare of the beckoning heights,
 Toiling and moiling through days of hope far into the fathomless nights;
 Alert to the precepts of stern success that thrive in the hearts of men,
 Crushed to the earth by the iron hand of fate he would rise again.
 Bruised by adversity, goaded by chance, each day he would grimly smite,
 For the blood in his veins was the blood that sustains a man in an uphill fight!
 
 Courage was his as he carved his path sans cheers of his fellow men,
 Stemming his way through each turbulent day that closed but to dawn again;
 Shoulder to shoulder with mutable luck, undaunted by jests and jeers,
 He carried his cross with a patience born of failure throughout the years;
 Building his castles and seeing them fall, he builded anew and smiled;
 Sounding the depths of his pluck, he knew with faith he was reconciled.
 Some day achievement all-infinite would dazzle and blind his sight,
 For the blood in his veins was the blood that sustains a man in a fearless fight!
 
 Year after year as his fathers forged, he struggled and staggered on,
 Over the path of the countless throngs where his sanctified betters had gone;
 Out of the smoke of each battle fought emerging to war anew,
 For the things they had done and the conquests won were naught to the deeds he’d do!
 What of the failures of yesteryear, the wrecks of a long dead day?
 Should they serve to swerve him and keep him back from the strife of an endless fray?
 Heaven forfend! He would strive to the end with the last of his curtailed might!
 For the blood in his veins was the blood that sustains a man in a losing fight!