Success and Failure

I do not think all failure's undeserved,

    And all success is merely someone's luck;

  Some men are down because they were unnerved,

    And some are up because they kept their pluck.

  Some men are down because they chose to shirk;

  Some men are high because they did their work.

  I do not think that all the poor are good,

    That riches are the uniform of shame;

  The beggar might have conquered if he would,

    And that he begs, the world is not to blame.

  Misfortune is not all that comes to mar;

  Most men, themselves, have shaped the things

    they are.

 

                                                 by Edgar Albert Guest