Balance
Be modest and humble; There's no cruder substance In the world than in you.
Aspire, be confident; There's no finer substance In the world than in you.
Solomon F. Gingerich
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
Be modest and humble; There's no cruder substance In the world than in you.
Aspire, be confident; There's no finer substance In the world than in you.
"Balance" is only six lines long, but it works like a pair of scales. The first stanza tells you to be modest and humble, because nothing in the world is cruder than what you're made of. The second flips it: aim high, be confident, because nothing in the world is finer than what you're made of. The two stanzas are built almost identically, down to the repeated "no ... substance / In the world than in you," so the reader feels the swing from one extreme to the other.
The speaker sounds calm and a little like a wise friend giving advice. There's no scolding here. The poem seems to say that both things are true of a person at once: we're rough, ordinary material, and we're also capable of something remarkable. Holding both ideas together keeps arrogance and self-doubt in check, and that's what the title points to. The mood is quiet, steady, and encouraging.