A HERO
Reading edition
If defeat strengthens and sweetens character, it is not defeat at all, but victory.
He sang of joy; whate'er he knew of sadness He kept for his own heart's peculiar share: So well he sang, the world imagined gladness To be sole tenant there.
For dreams were his, and in the dawn's fair shining, His spirit soared beyond the mounting lark; But from his lips no accent of repining Fell when the days grew dark;
And though contending long dread Fate to master, He failed at last her enmity to cheat, He turned with such a smile to face disaster That he sublimed defeat.
Florence Earle Coates.
From "Poems."