If
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 wornout 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!
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Beautiful poem. Very apt for these times.
Thanks.
I agree. I also note that Kipling was mildly appalled to learn that it was a being taught in school.
Dear AC,
Go enjoy your boat and your tent. Get another dog, a youngster, to teach again. Jeremiah bought land in Israel to set a stone in time and against stony hearts: it is not over. It will be rebuilt. Joy has not ceased. Right now, Joy is at premium. Invest!
I had thought to send you an Amazon gift with the hope you’d find it useful…a mere 35 buck gift card and a link to the book “The Sailmaker’s Apprentice” and the hope that another codger would set awhile and stab himself with sharp steel pins and invent new cursewords and craft a wing to fly upon the waters in a vessel craft of his own hands…and enjoy thereby the blessings and vicarious living of dreams, for now, far from me. Sadly, something has come atwixt..for a while. Mark ye…as soon as, you’ll have your Pass to Self Impalement, should you wish, and a hint to a Book of Learning about Floating Soaring Things. Til then, chin up, I for one need a kind word or thirtyelventygrand of squirelly goodness.
S.
p.s. I drank your beer, you weren’t here, and it was going warm…urp, was good.
Ha ha ha… I hope you liked the beer. Don’t fret if you can’t swing the gift card. Times change and rough spots pass. I’ll check out the book now that I know the title. That said, I’m glad I bought the sail for my boat as it took me far too long to build the hull.
Also, I’m working on a non-boat walkabout “adventure”. The current kerfluffle has derailed my logistics but sooner or later (ideally by mid summer) there will be the story of another Curmudgeon camping trip. Also, the boat will hit water as soon as conditions allow and freak outs about bubonic plague be damned.
Appropriate.
A bookend for you:
Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
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My grandfather used to recite lines from Kipling poems to me when I was a child and I never really understood them.
Now that I am older, I understand. Sadly, he’s long gone and I can’t thank him for the wisdom.
“Gods of the Copybook Headings” and “The Sons of Martha” are favorites.
Gods of the Copybook Headings is a favorite of mine too. It’s on my Quotes & Poems page.