See it Through, poetry by Edgar Albert Guest

Image Credit: poets.org

Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881 – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific English-born American poet who was popular and became known as the People's Poet, in the first half of the 20th century. After he began at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy and then a reporter, his first poem appeared December 11, 1898. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902.

Guest penned some 11,000 poems which were syndicated in some 300 newspapers and collected in more than 20 books, including A Heap o' Livin' (1916) and Just Folks (1917). For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America, and his sentimental, optimistic poems were in the same vein as the light verse of Nick Kenny, who wrote syndicated columns during the same decades. His popularity led to a weekly Detroit radio show which he hosted from 1931 until 1942, followed by a 1951 NBC television series, A Guest in Your Home. Join us as we celebrate National Poetry Month with the poem, See it Through, by Edgar Albert Guest.

See it Through

By Edgar Albert Guest

When you're up against a trouble, 

Meet it squarely, face to face; 

Lift your chin and set your shoulders,

Plant your feet and take a brace.

When it's vain to try to dodge it,

Do the best that you can do;

You may fail, but you may conquer,

See it through! 

Black may be the clouds about you

And your future may seem grim,

But don't let your nerve desert you;

Keep yourself in fighting trim.

If the worst is bound to happen,

Spite of all that you can do,

Running from it will not save you,

See it through! 

Even hope may seem but futile,

When with troubles you're beset,

But remember you are facing

Just what other men have met.

You may fail, but fall still fighting;

Don't give up, whate'er you do;

Eyes front, head high to the finish.

See it through!