SAINT Augustine!  well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day’s events, 

That with the hour begin and end, 

Our pleasures and our discontents, 

Are rounds by which we may ascend.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;

But we have feet to scale and climb 

By slow degrees, by more and more, 

The cloudy summits of our time.

The heights by great men reached and kept, 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We may discern – unseen before.

A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past 

As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 

If, rising on its wrecks, at last 

To something nobler we attain.