Is It Worth While?
Joaquin Miller
1837 to 1913
Type into the gaps to complete the poem. To reset the game, click on the "Reset Game" button located below the poem. This will clear all the words you've placed in the blanks, and resetting the poem to its original state with empty blanks. If you prefer to drag and drop words, click the Drag & Drop button below. You can also print out the poem for use in the classroom.
Is it worth while that we jostle a brother,
Bearing his load on the rough road of life?
it worth while that we jeer at each other
In blackness of heart?—that we war to the knife?
God pity us all in our pitiful strife.
pity us all as we jostle each other;
pardon us all for the triumphs we feel
a fellow goes down 'neath his load on the heather,
Pierced to the heart: words are keener than steel,
And mightier far for woe than for weal.
it not well, in this brief little journey
over the isthmus, down into the tide,
We him a fish instead of a serpent,
Ere the hands to be and abide
Forever and in dust at his side?
Look at the roses each other;
Look at the herds all at on the plain—
Man, and man only, makes on his brother,
And dotes in his heart his peril and pain—
Shamed by the brutes go down on the plain.
Is it worth while we battle to humble
Some poor fellow down the dust?
God pity us all! Time too will tumble
All of us together, like leaves a gust,
Humbled, indeed, down into the dust.
should we envy a moment of pleasure
Some fellow-mortal has wrung from it all?
Oh! could look into his life's broken measure—
Look at dregs—at the wormwood and gall—
Look at his hung with crape like a pall;
Look at the down by his hearthstone;
Look at his cares their merciless sway,
I know you would go say tenderly, lowly,
Brother—my brother, for aye and aye,
Lo! Lethe is washing the blackness away.