1
A moment of pleasure,
An hour of pain,
A day of sunshine,
A week of rain,
A fortnight of peace,
A month of strife,
These taken together
Make up life.
2
One real friend
To a dozen foes,
Two open gates,
’Gainst twenty that’s closed,
Prosperity’s chair,
Then adversity’s knife;
These my friends
Make up life.
3
At daybreak a blossom,
At noontime a rose,
At twilight ’tis withered,
At evening ’tis closed.
The din of confusion,
The strain of the fife,
These with other things
Make up life.
4
A smile, then a tear,
Like a mystic pearl,
A pause, then a rush
Into the mad whirl,
A kiss, then a stab
From a traitor’s knife;
I think that you’ll agree with me,
That this life.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on July 31, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
This poem is in the public domain.