Ye 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)