Struggle

“I have struggled for thirty years”
Said my friend,–
“He was preparing for a Jubilee.
“But who that lives struggles not?”
I asked, and he agreed.

Life is a struggle all the time
One or another sort for every one;
From when the child is pushed
Head foremost into the cold world
Each breath is a struggle
And every thought is a struggle,
For struggle is the throb of life.

Envy not, for every soul
And every breathing body struggles.
And those who live in ease
They struggle too against hated ennui.
The fatigue you feel as the years grow
It is the gentle voice of nature
That you must round your stalks
And prepare to fall away.

Spring! And Summer! Then Autumn comes
And the leaves that served the mother tree
And shone in the splendour of active life
Softly they drop with rounded stalks;
And in golden yellow quietly smile
At the leafy vanities that are over.

Ah, men!
Our foolish loves
And our more foolish hates
They also find their dropping dates,
And sometimes suddenly the date arrives,
Yet always as an unfailing friend does Death
Ring down the curtain on our follies.

Reprinted from
Triveni, January 1955