It takes great strength to train To modern service your ancestral brain;
To lift the weight of the unnumbered years
Of dead men’s habits, methods, and ideas;
15To hold that back with one hand, and support
With the other the weak steps of a new thought.
It takes great strength to bring your life up square
With your accepted thought, and hold it there;
Resisting the that drags back
From new attempts to the old habit’s track.
It is so easy to drift back, to sink;
So hard to live of what you think!
It takes great strength to live where you belong
When other people think that you are wrong;
People you love, and who love you, and whose
Approval is a pleasure you would choose.
To bear this pressure and succeed at length
In living your belief—well, it takes strength.
And courage too. But what does courage mean
Save strength to help you face a pain foreseen?
Courage to undertake this lifelong strain
Of setting yours against your grandsire’s brain;
Dangerous risk of walking and free
Out of the easy paths that used to be,
And the fierce pain of hurting those we love
When love meets truth, and truth mus............