Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,Â
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,Â
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
One of my favorite poems, it was quoted by Winston Churchill on the floor of Parliament when Britain stood alone against the Third Reich:
Fortune does favor the bold and those who will never stop fighting for a good cause, no matter the odds.
Unfortunately it seems clear now that the United States of America, at least in terms of its government, is no longer among the bold or the brave. So we have yielded the world to the likes of Vladimir Putin (or is it really to Vladimir Lenin?) and ceased to be “the home of the Brave”.
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