Author? author? (89)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Wed, 1 Mar 89 19:59:22 EST
Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 666. Wednesday, 1 Mar 1989.
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 89 19:34:12 CST
From: "Kevin L. Cope" <ENCOPE@LSUVM>
Subject: help with authorship
BASKETBALL COACH SOLICITS HELP FROM HUMANISTS
A renowned university basketball coach has asked for help in determining
the authorship of the following poem. If you recognize it, would you please
help me help him to victory by attributing it to an author, and thus making it
possible to include it in team motivational literature? Thank you.
Yours ever, Kevin L. Cope <ENCOPE@LSUVM>
THE ROAD AHEAD
Sometimes I think the fates must grin as we
denounce them and insist,
The only reason we can't win is the fates
themselves have missed.
Yet, there lives on the ancient claim--
We win or lose within ourselves,
The shining trophies on our shelves can
Never win tomorrow's game.
So you and I know deeper down there is a
chance to win the crown,
But when we fail to give our best, we
simply haven't met the test
Of giving all and saving none until the
game is really won.
Of showing what is meant by grit, of
fighting on when others quit,
Of playing through not letting up, it's
bearing down that wins the cup.
Of taking it and taking more until we
gain the winning score,
Of dreaming there's a goal ahead, of
hoping when our dreams are dead,
Of praying when our hopes have fled.
Yet, losing, not afraid to fall,
If bravely we have given all, for who
can ask more of a man
Thus giving all, it seems to me, is not
so far from -- VICTORY.
And so the fates are seldom wrong, no
matter how they twist and wind,
It's you and I who make our fates, we
open up or close the gates,
On the ROAD AHEAD or the ROAD BEHIND.
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LSU BASKETBALL NEEDS HELP IDENTIFYING AUTHOR OF SECOND POEM
Does anyone know the author of the following poem? Thank you. Kevin L.
Cope -- ENCOPE@LSUVM
THE BRIDGE BUILDER
An old man, traveling a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray
To a chasm vast and deep and wide
The old man crossed in the twilight dim
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting your strength with building here,
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way.
You've crossed the chasm deep and wide,
Why build you this bridge at eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said
"There follows after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way;
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired you may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim,
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."