Striving
Robert William Service
Striving is life, yet life is striving;
I fight to live, yet live to fight;
The vital urge is in my driving,
Yet I must drive with all my might:
Each day a battle, and the fray
Stoutly renewed the coming day.
A am myself—yet when I strive
I build a self that’s truer, higher;
I keep my bit of God alive
And forgive me in heroic fire:
What if my goal I never gain -
Better to toil than to attain.
It is not what I do or make,
It is the travail of my trying;
The aim, the effort and the ache
Is in the end my glorifying:
Through triumph I may never see,
The will to win is victory.
Striving is strength: with all that’s in me
I will not falter in the fray;
And though no shining crown it win me,
I’ll fight unto my latest day:
Strive on!—and though I win no place,
Uphold the spirit of the race.
Behold yon peaks that mock my climbing. . . .
I peer from out the dusty plain;
Dark falls, the mission bells are chiming
As on to starry heights I strain;
Despite the night up, up I plod
To gain the golden meads of God.
