Classic Poem

No fat security hath charms
To keep me always satisfied:
What ho! Excursions and alarms!
A scheme, a plot, a ripping tide
Of rude events to prick my pride,
Or crack the shell of my conceit
Upon the edge of things untried!
This is the fate that I would meet.

Now let some bully thing intrude,
And bugle to the soul of me!
I grow stale with quietude,
And this too safe monotony:
O good my friend or enemy
Call me back to the battling street!
For high low variety —
This is the fate that I would meet.

To more than keep oneself alive
Is the way to live when all is said:
To sight a prize, and chase and strive
With strong will and cunning head
For something surely more than bread,
Or from the bitter steal the sweet,
And steal it while the risk is red —
This is the fate that I would meet.

To conquer finely, or to sink
Debonair against defeat,
This is the rarest grace I think —
This is the fate that I would meet.