For The Man Who Fails

A poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The world is a snob, and the man who wins
Is the chap for its money's worth:
And the lust for success causes half of the sins
That are cursing this brave old earth.
For it 's fine to go up, and the world's applause
Is sweet to the mortal ear;
But the man who fails in a noble cause
Is a hero that 's no less dear.

'T is true enough that the laurel crown
Twines but for the victor's brow;
For many a hero has lain him down
With naught but the cypress bough.
There are gallant men in the losing fight,
And as gallant deeds are done
As ever graced the captured height
Or the battle grandly won.

We sit at life's board with our nerves highstrung,
And we play for the stake of Fame,
And our odes are sung and our banners hung
For the man who wins the game.
But I have a song of another kind
Than breathes in these fame-wrought gales,--
An ode to the noble heart and mind
Of the gallant man who fails!

The man who is strong to fight his fight,
And whose will no front can daunt,
If the truth be truth and the right be right,
Is the man that the ages want.
Tho' he fail and die in grim defeat,
Yet he has not fled the strife,
And the house of Earth will seem more sweet
For the perfume of his life.