Poems (Kennedy)/Heredity
HEREDITY
I WILL live my life as it has been planned, No good comes ever of idle fret;I will look each day in the face, clear-eyed, With silent lips and a cheek unwet.
I will eat of the Dead Sea fruit of grief And give no sign of its bitter tang;I will tread, blind-fold, the hot plough-shares, Hearing the song that the martyrs sang.
I will drink, athirst and whelmed with woe, The brine of tears naught could appease—Yea, undismayed I will drain the draught And break the cup at the bitter lees.
I will bear my cross up Calvary's mount Where Sorrow sits with barbs and scars,But the summit gained, I will lift mine eyes Beyond the cross to the steadfast stars.
And this I will do through a pride of race, For clean red blood with its instincts high;Who whimpers and grovels 'neath whips of fate Shames the heritage proud of ancestry.
For the crucial test of a man is pain Of body or soul, which e'er it be;The coward's brood quails, but he who is sired Of faith and courage fights valiantly.