<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409736" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Ladder Of St. Augustine. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,<br>That of our vices we can frame<br>A ladder, if we will but tread<br>Beneath our feet each deed of shame! <br>All common things, each day's events,<br>That with the hour begin and end,<br>Our pleasures and our discontents,<br>Are rounds by which we may ascend. <br>The low desire, the base design,<br>That makes another's virtues less;<br>The revel of the ruddy wine,<br>And all occasions of excess; <br>The longing for ignoble things;<br>The strife for triumph more than truth;<br>The hardening of the heart, that brings<br>Irreverence for the dreams of youth; <br>All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,<br>That have their root in thoughts of ill;<br>Whatever hinders or impedes<br>The action of the nobler will;-- <br>All these must first be trampled down<br>Beneath our feet, if we would gain<br>In the bright fields of fair renown<br>The right of eminent domain. <br>We have not wings, we cannot soar;<br>But we have feet to scale and climb<br>By slow degrees, by more and more,<br>The cloudy summits of our time. <br>The mighty pyramids of stone<br>That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,<br>When nearer seen, and better known,<br>Are but gigantic flights of stairs. <br>The distant mountains, that uprear<br>Their solid bastions to the skies,<br>Are crossed by pathways, that appear<br>As we to higher levels rise. <br>The heights by great men reached and kept<br>Were not attained by sudden flight,<br>But they, while their companions slept,<br>Were toiling upward in the night. <br>Standing on what too long we bore<br>With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,<br>We may discern--unseen before--<br>A path to higher destinies. <br>Nor deem the irrevocable Past,<br>As wholly wasted, wholly vain,<br>If, rising on its wrecks, at last<br>To something nobler we attain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Wadsworth+Longfellow">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409736" data-title="The Ladder Of St. Augustine. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First) de Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" data-description="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, Ar..."></div> </div> </div>

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