Poems (Hoffman)/Success and Failure

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

SUCCESS AND FAILURE.

Who drains the goblet of Success
 To find it ever brimming,
Proves not to me by simply this
His undisputed worthiness
To wear the crown of kingliness
 That pride is often dimming.

Who finds but Failure's bitter dregs
 In some great undertaking,
Proves not by simply this to me
That rightly and deservedly
He forfeits true nobility,
 All claim to honors breaking.

'Tis glorious to succeed and wear
 Success's living laurel,
But when ennobling Effort's crown
But serves to weight that effort down,
As growing reefs of high renown
 Reveal the hidden coral.

If some vain ego of disdain
 Usurp the throne empyreal,
Some proud usurper to displace
King Kindness and each kindred grace,
And Queen Humility's sweet face
 Of charms ethereal.

Success becomes poor Failure's twin
 Blessed with prosperity,
One, plunged in misery and want,
Bearing low Failure's dismal taunt,
The other, in delight to flaunt
 His title of feigned verity.

Yet Failure hath ofttimes a worth
 To minds too high to grovel,
He, who beholds his chosen star
Grow day by day more faint and far,
Yet lets not this his nature mar,
 Is great without approval.

And see'st thou one whom worth equips,
 To be the great of sect or nation,
Yet through whose wisdom-guarded lips
No word of egotism slips;
And through whose daily acts there trips
 No phantom of self-approbation,

That one sets first a Christian grace
 In Grandeur's jeweled coronet;
That pearl whose heaven-enkindled rays
Shine on undimmed by slight or praise,
Rebuking false Ambition's gaze,
 Dazed by Fame's golden parapet.