THE WILL TO WIN (POETRY)

 

If you want a thing bad enough

To go out and fight for it,

Work day and night for it,

Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it

If only desire of it

Makes you quite mad enough

Never to tire of it,

Makes you hold all other things tawdry

and cheap for it

If life seems all empty and useless without it

And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,

If gladly you'll sweat for it,

Fret for it, Plan for it,

Lose all your terror of God or man for it,

If you'll simply go after that thing that you want.

With all your capacity,

Strength and sagacity,

Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,

If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,

Nor sickness nor pain

Of body or brain

Can turn you away from the thing that you want,

If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,

You'll get it!

              About Author

Braley was born in Madison, Wisconsin. His father, Arthur B. Braley, was a judge; he died when Berton Braley was seven years old. At 16, Braley quit high school and got a job working as a factory hand at a plow plant. After a few years, Braley went back to school and received his high school diploma. Shortly thereafter he discovered Tom Hood's poetry instructional book The Rhymester. He spent some time after 1905 living in Butte, Montana, working as a staff journalist on the Butte Evening News (published 1905–1911).

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