Per Aspera
A motto has been made of the Latin phrase “per aspera ad astra,” of which the translation sometimes given is “through bolts and bars to the stars.”
Thank God, a man can grow!
He is not bound
With earthward gaze to creep along the ground:
Though his beginnings be but poor and low,
Thank God, a man can grow!
The fire upon his altars may burn dim,
The torch he lighted may in darkness fail,
And nothing to rekindle it avail,—
Yet high beyond his dull horizon’s rim,
Arcturus and the Pleiads beckon him.
Florence Earle Coates.
From “Poems.”