You Learn By Living

--J. Patrick Lewis

                  for Eleanor Roosevelt

Who showed the world the world itself

     Was awkward, shy and plain.

A high-born leader in a long,

     Low decade full of pain.

Poor farmers, blacks, homeless, the least

     Advantaged hoped to see,

Magnificently unarrayed,

     Pure human dignity.

A lady first, the great first lady

     Looked fear in the face,

And said, There is no room for fear

     When courage take its place.