| Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). The Strenuous Life. 1900. |
EPIGRAMS |
| HOW dull it is to pause, to make an end, | |
| To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! | |
| As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life | |
| Were all too little, and of one to me | |
| Little remains: but every hour is saved | 5 |
| From that eternal silence, something more, | |
| A bringer of new things; and vile it were | |
| For some three suns to store and hoard myself, | |
| And this gray spirit yearning in desire | |
| To follow knowledge like a sinking star, | 10 |
| Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. | |
| ... My mariners, | |
| Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— | |
| That ever with a frolic welcome took | |
| The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed | 15 |
| Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; | |
| Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; | |
| Death closes all: but something ere the end, | |
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,—
. . . . . . . . . | |
| Push off, and sitting well in order smite | 20 |
| The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds | |
| To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths | |
| Of all the western stars, until I die. | |
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TENNYSON'S "ULYSSES." | |
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| JA! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben, | |
| Dass ist der Weisheit letzter Schluss; | |
| Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, | |
| Der täglich sic erobern muss. | |
| Und so verbringt, umrungen von Gefahr, | |
| Hier Kindheit, Mann und Greis sein tüchtig Jahr. | |
| Solch' ein Gewimmel möcht' ich sehn, | |
| Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn. | |
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GOETHE'S "FAUST."
EXECUTIVE MANSION, ALBANY, N. Y.,
September, 1900. | |
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