Leaves of Grass

  Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)
  Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,
  Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;
  Enough that they’ve survived at all—long life’s unflinching ones!
  Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all—
      in that alone,
  True conquerors o’er all the rest.