Wooden

A man’s success is not his own

despite his gifted hands;

a soldier needs a captain who

needs those who he commands.

He no more is his finest hour

than is his darkest turn,

and neither one can profit him

save what by each he learns.

His life is not a sum of strokes

he’s made along the way,

but hallways full of canvasses

he’s painted every day.

A man’s success is not his own

despite the heights he reaches;

all his knowledge dies with him

apart from what he teaches.

He is not the friends he knows

but friend as he is known,

not the wealth he’s harvested

but seeds that he has sown.

It is not faith on which he holds,

but faith takes hold of him,

a purpose not in depth of roots

but fruit upon the limb.

A man’s success is not his own

despite how he’s enshrined;

the measure of his life is found

in those he leaves behind.