You Have Not Failed
By Bertha A. Kleinman
You have not failed who have withstood
The grilling years of wear,
For golden twilight still makes good –
The oldest tree can grow new wood
And blossom just as fair.
You may at some despondent stage
Review a squandered youth,
The future – still a whitened page –
Can yet absolve the darkest age
And fill your life with Truth.
There is no period of your past
So hopeless to recall,
No round of days so overcast
But your tomorrow is more vast
And can redeem it all.
Mistakes are rounds by which you mount –
Defeated, great souls rise –
And as you grapple and surmount,
There is no failure God will count
In any life that tries!
(1926)
I needed this. Thanks!
You and me both, Gretchen. Thanks for letting me know you read and responded to it.
I know I shouldn’t romanticize the past. There’s a lot of bad along with the good. I shouldn’t place my judgements on a period that I never lived in.
But DANG IT! Why can’t they write like this anymore? 😉
I really, really enjoyed this. Thanks, Ardis. 🙂
Sometimes our grandparents got it exactly right, didn’t they? Thanks, Alyssa.
Wonderful. Thank you!
I think that every person I know, and then some, should copy this and put it where it can be read and reread. I’m probably not alone in looking back at certain actions, feeling like I can never overcome those actions. At one period in my life I caused a lot of pain to certain family members because of what I had done. I finally came to the conclusion that I could never go back and undo things, but I could go forward, and that the end result in my interactions with those family members began at that moment. Today I have a wonderful relationship where there was once regret and unhappiness.