Posts: 370
Threads: 22
Joined: Feb 2016
Quote:If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!
Note from b2g:
Rudyard Kipling published this poem in 1910 and Ernest Shackleton already had a framed copy of it in the ship's library on his ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic in 1914. I myself keep a framed copy in both my office at my place of work AND my home office. I'm something of a Kipling fanatic, having been introduced to his work via a paperback anthology while waiting to be picked up at Omar Torrijos Airport, but of all his works, I think this may be his finest.
Posts: 8,865
Threads: 233
Joined: Jun 2015
B2G I like this poem, If—Rudyard Kipling, 1865 - 1936
I was listening to the regular afternoon radio show host I like real well last week and he quoted from this exact poem....the first couple lines.....but, it is as they say, a classic for sure worth having.
May I add one ...... Kipling
The Power of the Dog
Rudyard Kipling, 1865 - 1936
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie—
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find—it’s your own affair—
But … you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long—
So why in—Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Posts: 370
Threads: 22
Joined: Feb 2016
Nice find Linville - This one doesn't appear in many cheap anthologies, it's actually rather hard to find in print.
Something about that man's writing just tears at my Scots / Irish soul, I can't get enough if it.
