Here's something of mine that shall ever stand
Till another shall tear it down;
Here is the work of my brain and hand,
Towering above the town.
And the idlers gay in their smug content,
Have nothing to leave for a monument.
Here from my girders I look below
At the throngs which travel by,
For little that's real will they leave to show
When it comes their time to die.
But I, when my time of life is through,
Will leave this building for men to view.
Oh, the work is hard and the days are long,
But hammers are tools for men,
And granite endures and steel is strong,
Outliving both brush and pen.
And ages after my voice is stilled,
Men shall know I lived by the things I build.
Old Years and New
Old years and new years, all blended into one,
The best of what there is to be, the best of what is gone--
Let's bury all the failures in the dim and dusty past
And keep the smiles of friendship and laughter to the last.
Old years and new years, life's in the making still;
We haven't come to glory yet, but there's the hope we will;
The dead old year was twelve months long, but now from it we're free,
And what's one year of good or bad to all the years to be?
Old years and new years, we need them one and all
To reach the dome of character and build its sheltering wall;
Past failures tried the souls of us, but if their tests we stood.
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