Will your heart and brain and sinew
Crowd you on, when hunger's pain
Gnaws your belly and you're beaten,
Can you lose, and fight again?
Can you raise the cup of fortune
To your lips and bravely quaff
The draught she has prepared for you
And win or lose and laugh?
Can you see the fruits of hardships
Centered on one desperate throw
And know Fate's dice are loaded
Nor curse to see them go?
Then take your burden up again
And stagger up the trail,
You're bound to make a winning
Cause you don't know how to fail.

I, who've spent my youth in following
The lure of hidden gold
Must pass the buck to Nature
And admit I'm growing old.
And yet each spring I hear it calling
And it's music to my ears,
The call of lonely places
That I've listened to for years.
It's cost me all most men hold dear
Some forty years of life,
And all the joys that others get
In babies, home, and wife.
My life's been all to-morrows