• Author: Guest, Edgar A.
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume V
• Page Number:
• Date: 4 3 1918
• Tags:
• poetry

THE WAY I FOUGHT

I am not bound to win life’s fame, I am not charged to reach a goal; It is not told that victory alone shall consecrate the soul. Not all the great men come to wealth, not all the noble men succeed, The glory of a life is not the record of one daring deed; And if I serve a purpose true, and keep my course, though temptest-tossed, It shall not matter in the end, whether I won my fight or lost. I was not ordered at my birth to come to death possessing gold; No stern command was given me that riches must be mine to hold. The reason for my life is hid, I shall not solve the mystery here, And even what is victory for mortal men is far from clear; But this I know, when comes the end and all my toiling here is done, The way I fought will count for more than all the goals I may have won If only victory were good, and only riches proved men’s worth, Then only men of strength would live, and brutes alone would rule the earth; Then striving for a lofty goal and failing to succeed were sin, And men and women would lie and cheat and steal and stoop to anything to win. But there are greater goals than gold, and finer virtues than success, And now I’ve fought shall count for more than what I’ve managed to possess.

—Edgar A. Guest.