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Read more poems by Robert Service: Robert Service Poems at Poetry X.

Striving is life, yet life is striving;
I fight to live, yet live to fight;
The vital urge is in my driving,
Yet I must drive with all my might:
Each day a battle, and the fray
Stoutly renewed the coming day.

A am myself - yet when I strive
I build a self that's truer, higher;
I keep my bit of God alive
And forgive me in heroic fire:
What if my goal I never gain -
Better to toil than to attain.

It is not what I do or make,
It is the travail of my trying;
The aim, the effort and the ache
Is in the end my glorifying:
Through triumph I may never see,
The will to win is victory.

Striving is strength: with all that's in me
I will not falter in the fray;
And though no shining crown it win me,
I'll fight unto my latest day:
Strive on! - and though I win no place,
Uphold the spirit of the race.

Behold yon peaks that mock my climbing. . . .
I peer from out the dusty plain;
Dark falls, the mission bells are chiming
As on to starry heights I strain;
Despite the night up, up I plod
To gain the golden meads of God.

Added: 29 Jun 2002 | Last Read: 5 Sep 2008 7:27 AM | Viewed: 2162 times

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