Posted on 09/05/2004 10:15:52 AM PDT by Tom D.
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 all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath 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
Somehow, Kerry sounds more Tennyson than Kipling (and not even the best of Tennyson).
BUMP
This is amazing. I had just googled this poem this morning, and I was taken by how much it described Bush, and was the opposite of Kerry. I thought I would post the poem in some appropriate thread.
Excellent!
I have no doubt that this was part of the required reading in the public schools of Midland, Texas. It was included in my school's curriculum (I am a couple of years younger than the President).
Meanwhile, Senator Kerry's private schools no doubt found Kipling too middle-class, and had him memorizing Shelley or something.
I agree. It is an excellent description of the President. Someone should do a film with scenes of the President while the poem is recited.
Glad you posted the whole thing!
His presidential aspirations.... nevermore.
even sKerry?
I used to put my kids to bed by reading that poem -- and other equally appropriate works -- by Kipling.
Thanks for reminding me of it.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
- Proverbs 28:1
Kipling.
My most favoritest poet.
= )
The 'Eathen, White Man's Burden, Sons of Martha, The Hymn of Breaking Strain, Cold Iron, Tommy, The list goes on and on and on.
Or T.S. Eliot. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock springs to mind.
Oh, you are quite right!! I don't know why I didn't think of it! Excellent choice for the Kerry curriculum!
That's probably Kerry hunting willow ptarmigan down by the dank tarn this morning.
Excellent choice:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
(it can be found at: http://www.cs.amherst.edu/~ccm/prufrock.html)
Some choice excerpts:
"And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,"
"But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. "
"Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool."
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