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!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
Rudyard Kipling
IF
If you can keep your job when all your cronies
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can vote yourself a massive bonus,
Despite the quarter's plunging revenue;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
To sink the knife exactly where it fits,
And being hated beat them all at hating,
And then downsize them all, the stupid shits;
If you can dream of sex all through a meeting
With hot account execs from O & M,
But never give a hint, however fleeting,
Your mind's on anything but cpm's;
If you can slap and tickle without feeling,
Give new meaning to the phrase "a bottom line";
If you can reinforce that glassy ceiling
(And fire the silly ninnies when they whine);
If you can stop the whistleblower blowing
And make sure the bastard never works again;
If you can inside trade without showing
And when the feds call, neatly shift the blame;
If you can peddle the stuff that causes cancer
But know the art of making settlements;
If you can perjure smoothly when you answer
And have the court seal all your documents;
If you can sell your board stupendous hooey;
If you can sweet-talk Fortune magazine;
If you can screw - but never be the screwee;
If you can count the all-important bean;
If you can fill each ever-loving minute
With sixty seconds of concern for Number One,
The company is yours and all that's in it,
And - yes - you'll be the CEO, my son!
T. Hendra
"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"
Good post.
Thanks.
"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs...."
Then perhaps you have misunderstood the seriousness of the situation.
For Rummy...
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God,
the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not
become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.
He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might
He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait
for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up
with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (NAS)
My dad gave me a card with this verse on it when I turned 18, having just graduated from high school. Have never forget it!
Awesome verses!
Gold for the Mistress, Silver for the Maid,
Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade,
But Iron, said the Baron, in his cold hall.
Cold Iron, is ruler of them all.
God trumps Kippling any day.
PS. My Mother read Kippling to us. When I had my children, I didn't know any nursery rhymes.
Dang. That poem fits a good many members of Congress.
My Grandpa did the same thing. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but as I grew older and more acquainted with those words they struck me, and still do.
This website rules.
As we mature, we can actually understand what he was talking about.
Kipling knew what it was about to be a human being and a man.
I like this Kipling poem:
Dane-Geld
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
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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