Classic Poem

When I struggle, with human hands,
The hands of God betray me.
When I cry, " I will win or die!"
His silences dismay me.
Yet when, a victim, low I lie,
His victor-wreaths array me.

For I have held but one defeat
Final and faith-abjuring;
Held — when strife at its worst was rife —
But this thing past the curing:
Failure to see how surely life
Grows great with great enduring.