If , Rudyard Kipling

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 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!

I Measure Every Grief I Meet: Emily Dickinson on Love and Loss

 

I Measure Every Grief I Meet: 

Emily Dickinson on Love and Loss

"To note the fashions — of the Cross —

And how they’re mostly worn —

Still fascinated to presume

That Some — are like My Own —"

I measure every Grief I meet

With narrow, probing, Eyes —

I wonder if It weighs like Mine —

Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long —

Or did it just begin —

I could not tell the Date of Mine —

It feels so old a pain —

I wonder if it hurts to live —

And if They have to try —

And whether — could They choose between —

It would not be — to die —

I note that Some — gone patient long —

At length, renew their smile —

An imitation of a Light

That has so little Oil —

I wonder if when Years have piled —

Some Thousands — on the Harm —

That hurt them early — such a lapse

Could give them any Balm —

Or would they go on aching still

Through Centuries of Nerve —

Enlightened to a larger Pain –

In Contrast with the Love —

The Grieved — are many — I am told —

There is the various Cause —

Death — is but one — and comes but once —

And only nails the eyes —

There’s Grief of Want — and Grief of Cold —

A sort they call “Despair” —

There’s Banishment from native Eyes —

In sight of Native Air —

And though I may not guess the kind —

Correctly — yet to me

A piercing Comfort it affords

In passing Calvary —

To note the fashions — of the Cross —

And how they’re mostly worn —

Still fascinated to presume

That Some — are like My Own —

*******

The Tear - Lord Byron -

The Tear

- Lord Byron -

When Friendship or Love our sympathies move, 

When Truth, in a glance, should appear, 

The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile, 

But the test of affection's a Tear: 

Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile, 

To mask detestation, or fear; 

Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soultelling eye 

Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear: 

Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below, 

Shows the soul from barbarity clear; 

Compassion will melt, where this virtue is felt, 

And its dew is diffused in a Tear: 

The man, doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale, 

Through billows Atlantic to steer, 

As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave, 

The green sparkles bright with a Tear; 

The Soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath 

In Glory's romantic career; 

But he raises the foe when in battle laid low, 

And bathes every wound with a Tear. 

If, with high-bounding pride he return to his bride! 

Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear; 

All his toils are repaid when, embracing the maid, 

From her eyelid he kisses the Tear. 

Sweet scene of my youth! seat of Friendship and Truth, 

Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting year 

Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd, for a last look I turn'd, 

But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear: 

Though my vows I can pour, to my Mary no more, 

My Mary, to Love once so dear, 

In the shade of her bow'r I remember the hour, 

She rewarded those vows with a Tear. 

By another possest, may she live ever blest! 

Her name still my heart must revere: 

With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine, 

And forgive her deceit with a Tear. 

Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart, 

This hope to my breast is most near: 

If again we shall meet in this rural retreat, 

May we meet, as we part, with a Tear. 

When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night, 

And my corse shall recline on its bier; 

As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume, 

Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear. 

May no marble bestow the splendour of woe 

Which the children of vanity rear; 

No fiction of fame shall blazon my name. 

All I ask – all I wish – is a Tear.

Here's to those who wish us well - Elaine -

Here's to those who wish us well, 

and those who don't can go to hell.

- Elaine Marie Benes -