Posted on 11/11/2006 7:24:08 PM PST by madison10
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 imposters 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!
My mother's sister gave me that in a Hallmark card when I was in Jr High for my birthday.
I think I made the "mistake" of asking God to help me reach such an exalted state of maturity some day.
Still not there.
But the tuition for TOWARDS that goal has been plenty expensive . . . sometimes hyper expensive.
We had to recite this after a night of sorority hazing. I was 16. It's been my favorite poem since.
Great tag line.
Thanks thanks.
Might have been less . . . fiesty if had more characters to use . . . On the other hand . . . they well deserve that and more.
Have a blessed Sunday and week ahead.
1776
Before
Twas not while England's sword unsheathed
Put half a world to flight,
Nor while their new-built cities breathed
Secure behind her might;
Not while she poured from Pole to Line
Treasure and ships and men--
These worshippers at Freedoms shrine
They did not quit her then!
Not till their foes were driven forth
By England o'er the main--
Not till the Frenchman from the North
Had gone with shattered Spain;
Not till the clean-swept oceans showed
No hostile flag unrolled,
Did they remember that they owed
To Freedom--and were bold!
After
The snow lies thick on Valley Forge,
The ice on the Delaware,
But the poor dead soldiers of King George
They neither know nor care.
Not though the earliest primrose break
On the sunny side of the lane,
And scuffling rookeries awake
Their England' s spring again.
They will not stir when the drifts are gone,
Or the ice melts out of the bay:
And the men that served with Washington
Lie all as still as they.
They will not stir though the mayflower blows
In the moist dark woods of pine,
And every rock-strewn pasture shows
Mullein and columbine.
Each for his land, in a fair fight,
Encountered strove, and died,
And the kindly earth that knows no spite
Covers them side by side.
She is too busy to think of war;
She has all the world to make gay;
And, behold, the yearly flowers are
Where they were in our fathers' day!
Golden-rod by the pasture-wall
When the columbine is dead,
And sumach leaves that turn, in fall,
Bright as the blood they shed.
Rudyard Kipling
For refuge from naysayers,
To protect and gather strength,
I include FreeRepublic in Christly prayers,
that we have this place at length,
In this hall of cyberspace,
where evil has no place,
and men of virtue gather,
I hope not for to blather.
ROTB
Where's your scansion? It's "Then you don't understand the situation." - Heard it first from Frank Gifford on MNF - 70's? 80's? Anyway, I'm sure it was old then.
BTTT!!!
Give us more!
Yes indeed. For our military, and for our Rummy.
“What you can do or dream you can do, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Goethe
“All work is a seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew.” Thomas Carlyle
"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare." Voltaire
“We are still masters of our fates. We are still captains of our souls.” Winston Churchill
And a few more.
Simple and brave, his faith awoke,
Ploughmen to struggle with their fate;
Armies won battles when he spoke,
And out of Chaos sprang the state.
Robert Bridges
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Thomas Paine
And one more, for Mr. Rumsfeld.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Mark Twain
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