Our Motto
“Better to-day than yesterday,”
One step forward and no step back;
Crush the fault that leadeth astray,
Nurse the virtue that keeps the track.
Only to live one minute well,
Ever the last of all, the now;
This leads higher than tongue can tell,
Plucking life from its topmost bough.
One less folly with every sun.
One more lesson that comes to stay;
Steadily thus the height is won.
“Better to-day than yesterday.”
- Title
- Our Motto
- Alternative Title
- Better today than yesterday'
- Creator
-
George Shepard Burleigh
- Bibliographic Citation
- The Messer Critic 1:3, 1898[?]
- George S. Burleigh Papers, 1825-1902. John Hay Library, Brown University. Large Scrapbook 235
- Date
- 1898
- Subject
- Character
- Virtue
- note
- This was written for a newspaper that was likely edited by students at the Asa Messer School. The school building still stands in Providence; see link below. The Messer Critic notes it was edited by member so the class of 1898, so the date of the poem has been provisionally linked to 1898.
- Asa Messer School
- Media
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Our Motto