outside the box

If--
Friday, May 06, 2005

by: Rudyard Kipling

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!

-----
note: subscribing to daily poems sometimes surprises you
on how that day's pick makes you think.

~*~*~

atomicvelvetsigh drank tea with Pandora @ 2:50 PM

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...: ganda *clap*clap**clap; 5/7/05, 6:25 AM
Unknown said...: ah who can forget this one. yknow it's voted the nation's top 100 best loved poems of all time.. in england i mean; 5/25/05, 1:22 AM
Unknown said...: you know what velvet? from the layout of your main blog, anyone could be forgiven for thinkin your site is for dark twisted people, or some vent for pain, hurt, agony, bitterness, [insert negative emotion here] but when i see you puttin up "if" i know those ppl can't be right.; 5/25/05, 1:24 AM
atomicvelvetsigh said...: well i can say.. i used to be twisted inside-out... but there just comes a time in one's life where the twists just ties up into a knot. and what else could you do but hold on to that knot *.* because who knows.. the knot may be the answer to all the questions of one's regretful life...
all all you have from that day on was everything but regrets.; 5/25/05, 2:15 AM

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