Resolve to Conquer Self

RESOLVE

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

As the dead year is clasped by a dead December,

    So let your dead sins with your dead days lie.

A new life is yours, and a new hope. Remember,

    We build our own ladders to climb to the sky.

Stand out in the sunlight of Promise, forgetting

    Whatever the Past held of sorrow or wrong.

We waste half our strength in a useless regretting;

    We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.

Have you missed in your aim? Well, the mark is still shining.

    Did you faint in the race? Well, take breath for the next.

Did the clouds drive you back? But see yonder their lining.

    Were you tempted and fell? Let it serve for a text.

As each year hurries by let it join that procession

    Of skeleton shapes that march down to the Past,

While you take your place in the line of Progression,

    With your eyes on the heavens, your face to the blast.

I tell you the future can hold no terrors

    For any sad soul while the stars revolve,

If he will stand firm on the grave of his errors,

    And instead of regretting, resolve, resolve.

It is never too late to begin rebuilding,

    Though all into ruins your life seems hurled,

For see how the light of the New Year is gilding

    The wan, worn face of the bruised old world.

SECRET THOUGHTS

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

I hold it true that thoughts are things
Endowed with bodies, breath, and wings,
And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results---or ill.
 
That which we call our secret thought
Speeds to the earth's remotest spot,
And leaves its blessings or its woes
Like tracks behind it as it goes.
 
It is God's law. Remember it
In your still chamber as you sit
With thoughts you would not dare have known,
And yet made comrades when alone.
 
These thoughts have life; and they will fly
And leave their impress by and by,
Like some marsh breeze, whose poisoned breath
Breathes into homes its fevered breath.
 
And after you have quite forgot
Or all outgrown some vanished thought,
Back to your mind to make its home,
A dove or raven, it will come.
 
Then let your secret thoughts be fair;
They have a vital part and share
In shaping worlds and moulding fate---
God's system is so intricate.

LIFE'S TRACK

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This game of life is a dangerous play,
Each human soul must watch alway,
    From the first to the very last.
I care not however strong and pure--
Let no man say he is perfectly sure
    The dangerous reefs are past.
 
For many a rock may lurk near by,
That never is seen when the tide is high--
    Let no man dare to boast.
When the hand is full of trumps--beware,
For that is the time when thought and care
    And nerve are needed most.
 
As the oldest jockey knows to his cost,
Full many a well-run race is lost
    A brief half length from the wire.
And many a soul that has fought with sin,
And gained each battle, at last gives in
    To sudden, fierce desire.
 
And vain seems the effort of spur and whip,
Or the hoarse, hot cry of the pallid lip,
    When once we have fallen back.
It is better to keep on stirrup and rein,
The steady poise and the careful strain
    In speeding along Life's track.
 
A watchful eye and a strong, true hand
Will carry us under the Judge's stand,
    If prayer, too, does its part.
And little by little the struggling soul
Will grow and strengthen and gain control
    Over the passionate heart.