Don't say...

Don’t say this struggle’s all in vain,
the target’s always out of range,
your work is effort down the drain,
and situations never change:

Perhaps it’s true your hopes were wrong,
but who’s to say your fears are right?
Your friends were fighting all along;
they’re winning battles out of sight.

The waves of hope may seem to stay
far down the beach you stand beside;
Across the sea, from far away,
comes justice like a mighty tide.

And when you watch the rising sun,
how slow, how slow it seems to rise.
But all around, the day’s begun:
behind you, see the sunny skies!

(My translation of Clough’s “Say not the struggle naught availeth” into modern English. The original Victorian poem is at https://www.bartleby.com/101/741.html )