Today we were asked to write poetry from our book shelf. Bjorn, at d’Verse, called it found poetry. The challenge is to arrange and make a poem using book titles from our shelf, without changing any titles. I thought these were a very fitting group for the times we are experiencing. See what you think? […]
I discovered this poem in one of my father’s poetry books when I was a young teen. I am not entirely sure we were taught this at school. But it has been a huge influence in my life. I simply would not be me without it, for sure.
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!Rudyard Kipling
When I was a teen it irked me that it is written for a male-dominated world. But I did not hold a grudge against Kipling and just put it down to him living in a whole different world to the 20th century I grew up in where women could do and be all the things that men could and be. Well most.
Please pass on to anyone who’d benefit from it.
I got the text from PoemHunter.com. You can read more Rudyard Kipling poems there.
The water bucket was brought by a woman. She left. Her child needed to be fed. Sands. Times comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. Between my thirst and this bucket of water, Between the consciousness of man and that of the stars, Matter passes from blue to gold. Sahara Tonight Your love gives way to […]
Lines from Alexander Pushkin
Neither anger feel nor sorrow
At the mean tricks life can play.
Bear the anguish of today:
Joy shall surely dawn tomorrow.It’s the future quickens hearts;
It’s the present is depressing:
All is fleeting, all departs,
And, when gone, receives our blessing.1825
Translated by Peter Tempest
Over the rainbow – A poem By Renton de Alwis
Somewhere over the rainbow
a dark cloud dances a tango…
tapping feet make
thunder and lightning
deafening blinding glows,
come please come…
soothing rain
cleanse this earth,
hearts and minds of all.
Image by NilookaD; Pickingflowers
How much stays unseen when some eye on us gazes–
A sub-text may run under clear-sounding phrases
And sighs of delight or expressions of sorrow
May differ in meaning from poses they borrow.
We lie on the grass, watch the sunlight which spreads,
But what are the thoughts that go round in our heads?
We meet. Stroll along in the garden’s deep shade,
But what is our purpose? What plans have we made?
Our time throbs and shakes with the problems of ages,
But man and his soul are a book of sealed pages!
At sight we are simple. No need for much guessing,
But what are our feelings? Extatic? Depressing?
We lunch in cheap restaurants without star rating
But maybe a triumph we are celebrating!
And perhaps it’s not transport that gives us a ride,
But invisible wings, which don’t show from outside.
Translated by Eva Strauss
From: Soviet Literature, 1979; ISSN-0202-1870
I’ve been posting multiple links about mindsets in my Facebook page after reading Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success which teaches how each of us can learn to fulfill our potential. Here’s a great summary of it.
Also, here’s a poem I came across in an old copy of Soviet Literature (1979).
Elegy
by Alexander Pushkin
The long-spent madness of once joyous days
Is dull and heavy like a drunken daze.
But, just like wine, the grief of days gone by
Grows ever stronger as years swiftly fly.
My fate is sad. Hard work and woe’s grim lore
Is all the future holds for me in store.
And yet, dear friends, I do not pray for death,
To think and suffer life must give me breath.
And I believe, mid worries, grief and pain,
Sweet spells of bliss will come my way again:
I’ll feast my ears on harmony supreme,
Let over fantasy tears freely stream,
And it may be, my sunset’s gloomy isle
Love shall light up with short-lived farewell smile.
1830
Translated by Diana Russell
Don’t you think it reflects a growth mindset? And that is something which always bestows hope.
A few lines from the poetry collection, Light of the Hearth
By Ivan Savelyev
The poems were translated by Walter May.
At any and every time of the year,
Whatever the dream I live at that hour,
With nature’s voice in harmony here
Is the tuning of my emotional power.
So near to me her tears, her hurts,
So heavy her grief and loss again,
That when they hack a branch from a birch
In my own arms I feel the pain.
* * *
No, the heavens are surely never blind,
And the earth can surely not lack sight.
Grasses deaf from birth you will not find.
Rivers without hearing would not be right.
It is we, the sons of heaven and earth,
Finding ourselves not all at once, I fear,
On the millennia’s steep road struggling forth,
Who are slowly learning to see and hear…
Today I’m sharing with you a few selected lines from
Auguries of Innocence by William Blake
Here’s the beginning :
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Its a long poem. You have to pause and wonder about each line and it would be worth it.
Here’s some more lines:
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet Delight.
Some ar Born to sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.
You can read the entire poem, Auguries of Innocence at PoemHunter.com. Don’t forget to check out other Blake poems as well.
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