Favorite Poems
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 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 kee 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)
wrote in late-Victorian colonialism-from 100 Best-Loved Poems :)
DON'T QUIT
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
WHen the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must-but don't you quit.
Life is queer with it's twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up, though the pace seems slow-
You might succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
it seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have capture the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the
night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
~Some poster-"Copyright 1997 Printed in USA by Scandecor Inc. Southampton, PA." Yep yep :)
It's very hard to follow! :) Hehehe.e.....
XIV
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile-her look-her way
Of speaking gently,-for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"-
For these things in themselves, Belov'ed, may
Be changed, or change for thee,-and love,
so wrought.
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,-
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Though may'st love on, through love's eternity.
~Elizabeth Barret Browning
Isn't it beautiful? Her poetry kinda flows from my heart onto paper. She's such as good writer.
XVII-another one randomly selected :)
My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between His After and Before,
ANd strike up and stike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pure
Patch Adams, Pablo Neruda, Sonnets, EB Browning :), more about Richard Wright, ML King, MJ-success, and WEB DuBouis, and James baldwin Am studies.. and and.. :)! :)
