UNLIKE MY LANCE, I AM BENT BUT NOT BROKEN

Unsubdued

"Poems that Have Helped Me"

                                      
I have hoped, I have planned, I have striven,
To the will I have added the deed,
The best that was in me I've given,
I have prayed, but the gods would not heed.

I have dared and reached only disaster,
I have battled and broken my lance,
I am bruised by a pitiless master
That the weak and the timid call Chance.

I am old, I am bent, I am cheated
Of all that Youth urged me to win;
But name me not with the defeated,
To-morrow again, I begin.