My father has searched for years to find the complete form of this poem his father once told him. Verse from the middle of it: " It doesn't matter to the winner of the race if he stumble when he started or was back in seventh place..." Thanks for your help

-- David Noll (nordberg@prodigy.com), May 18, 1998

Answers

I am not sure if this is the poem you are looking for or not, but it could be.

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The future belongs to the doer of deeds..

It is not the critic who counts; nor the person who points out how the strong stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago (April 10, 1899), in Swindoll, Hand Me Another Brick, p. 79.

-- Di (Di_Cat@hotmail.com), February 11, 1999.