Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5015, 7 February 1885, Page 1

Select Poetry.

AFRAID.

Some people can never get on, Let their chance be as good as it may,

They stammer, and shuffle, and stick Where others will dash right away; Theylcry it's for want of a cheek, That the world isn't properly made, ; Bat it's pluck and not cheek that they want. " Yes, the truth of it is, they're afraid.

A man will set eyes on. a girl, And think her divine, and all that, Bat he doesn't march up there and then, And tell her his mind smart and pat; He hums, and he haws, and he blushes, And after a day is delayed, Till at last some one weds her right off. • Yes, he's lost her by being afraid.

There's many a man with good hands. That can work with true strength and trua skill. Gets shunted aside just because He'll not push where another man will; He sweats and he groans in the mud, And lets himself sink into shade, Yet he might have been famous and rich, If he hadn't been soft and afraid.

There are men who are upright and true, ,' Who shut themselves in their own den— They daren't step into the front, And take up their stand there like men; They live and grow rich out of sight, And never are known but in trade, Yet they might have been honored and blest If they hadn't been still and afraid.

Stand up then, and don't be done down By cheek, and by swagger, and brag, For a man should stick up for his rights, Whether wealthy or not worth a ,"mag;" The God that made one has made all, One heaven to us all is displayed, * And if a man does what is right There's no one need make him afraid.