Classic Poem

I HAVE my own ambition — it is not
To mount on eagle wings and soar away
Beyond the palings of the common lot,
Scorning the griefs and joys of every day;
I would be human — toiling, like the rest
With tender human heart-beats in my breast.

Not on cold, lonely heights, above the ken
Of common mortals would I build my fame,
But in the kindly hearts of living men,
There, if permitted, would I write my name;
Who builds above the clouds must dwell alone;
I count good fellowship above a throne.

And so, beside my door I sit and sing
My simple strains — now sad, now light and gay,
Happy, if this or that but wake one string,
Whose low, sweet echoes give me back the lay —
And happier still, if girded by my song,
Some strained and tempted soul stands firm and strong.

Humanity is much the same; if I
Can give my neighbors pent-up thought a tongue,
And can give voice to his unspoken cry
Of bitter pain, when my own heart is wrung,
Then we two meet upon a common land,
And henceforth stand together, hand in hand.

I send my thought its kindred thought to greet,
Out to the far frontier, through crowded town,
Friendship is precious, sympathy is sweet;
So these be mine, I ask no laurel-crown.
Such my ambition, which I here untold,
So it be granted — mine is wealth untold.