Explore "Ambition's Trail" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If all the end of this continuous striving / Were simply _to attain_, / How poor would seem the planning and contriving, / The endless urging and the hurried driving, / Of body, heart, and brain!
But ever in the wake of true achieving / There shines this glowing trail- / Some other soul will be spurred on, conceiving / New strength and hope, in its own power believing, / Because _thou_ didst not fail.
Not thine alone the glory, nor the sorrow, / If thou dost miss the goal; / Undreamed of lives in many a far to-morrow / From thee their weakness or their force shall borrow- / On, on, ambitious soul.