Cowards and Tragic Heroes

The coward destroys, despises, and hates --
Denies all virtue, knowledge, charity --
Empowers only hooded hangmen, debates
Nobody, certain he is right -- he'll flee
From love and risk and pain at any cost,
And will not suffer any suffering
To bring success, for that condemns -- he's tossed
The future into Hell so none can sing.

The coward hates, resents such excess love --
Resents success, ignores the failures, pain
The bold must bear. He'll smash them with his glove,
He'll poison, lie, condemn all honest gain.
The scientist, philosopher, investor
Is busy with the future, trips and falls
And springs and leads again -- he will not nest or
Relax for long -- he has to scale more walls!

The coward trembles at the fear of loss --
He cannot love, he dare not take the risk.
Inventor, artist, businessman -- his cross
Is borne if he knows that his love may whisk
Away at any moment. An excessive
Love, risk of pain, is necessary. Great
The genius lifting us, his love expressive
And delicate -- successful, seems our fate.

The coward, misanthrope wins but a day --
The one who loves to excess will arise
And reproduce the beauty and the way
Inherent in the kosmos. If he dies
For love, he dies a man who tried, who filled
His life, who shined and danced, who blazed a trail
That others, far less brave, may go. He tilled
The land for others who'd, without him, fail.

The tragic hero -- artist, businessman,
Philosopher, investor, scientist,
Inventor -- all who risk and love and plan,
Entrepreneur who, in pain, has kissed
The ground and from that ground arose again
And all too often lost and fell, were lain
Down by the world, yet some would sometimes win,
And when they won, it was the world's true gain.