This is another chapter in the book,
This is another race that you have planned,
Don't give the vanished days a backward look,
Start where you stand.

The world won't care about your old defeats
If you can start anew and win success,
The future is your time, and time is fleet
And there is much of work and strain and stress;
Forget the buried woes and dead despairs,
Here is a brand new trial right at hand,
The future is for him who does and dares,
Start where you stand.

Old failures will not halt, old triumphs aid,
To-day's the thing, to-morrow soon will be;
Get in the fight and face it unafraid,
And leave the past to ancient history;
What has been, has been; yesterday is dead
And by it you are neither blessed nor banned,
Take courage, man, be brave and drive ahead,
Start where you stand.

_Berton Braley._

From "A Banjo at Armageddon."

A HOPEFUL BROTHER

A Cripple Creek miner remarked that he had hunted for gold for
twenty-five years. He was asked how much he had found. "None," he
replied, "but the prospects are good."

Ef you ask him, day or night,
When the worl' warn't runnin' right,
"Anything that's good in sight?"
This is allus what he'd say,
In his uncomplainin' way--
"Well, I'm hopin'."

When the winter days waz nigh,
An' the clouds froze in the sky,
Never sot him down to sigh,
But, still singin' on his way,
He'd stop long enough to say--
"Well, I'm hopin'."

Dyin', asked of him that night
(Sperrit waitin' fer its flight),
"Brother, air yer prospec's bright?"
An'--last words they heard him say,
In the ol', sweet, cheerful way--
"Well, I'm hopin'."

_Frank L. Stanton._

"The Atlanta Constitution."

A SONG OF THANKSGIVING

We should have grateful spirits, not merely for personal benefits, but
also for the right to sympathize, to understand, to help, to trust, to
struggle, to aspire.

Thank God I can rejoice
In human things--the multitude's glad voice,
The street's warm surge beneath the city light,
The rush of hurrying faces on my sight,
The million-celled emotion in the press
That would their human fellowship confess.
Thank Thee because I may my brother feed,
That Thou hast opened me unto his need,
Kept me from being callous, cold and blind,
Taught me the melody of being kind.
Thus, for my own and for my brother's sake--