When you're lost in the wild, and you're scared as a child
And death looks you bang in the eye
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To **** your revolver and... die
But the code of a man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred
In hunger and woe, oh it's easy to blow
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame
You're young, and you're brave, and you're bright
"You've had a raw deal!" I know-but don't squeal
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
Its the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten-and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl
But to fight and fight when hope's out of sight-
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you may come out of each grueling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred
Just have one more try-it's dead easy to die
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

-Robert Service

There will come soft rains, and the smell of the ground.
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound.

And frogs in the pools singing at night
And wild-plum trees in tremulous white

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

-Sara Teasdale

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
And in the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

-William Blake

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought-
So rested he by Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwocky, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with it's head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

-Lewis Carroll

Tell all the Truth-but tell it Slant
Success in Circuit lies
To bright for our infirm delight-
The Truth's superb surprise
As lightning to the children eased-
With Explanation kind
The truth must dazzle gradually-
Lest every man be Blind

-Emily Dickinson

Much Madness is divinest sense-
To a discerning Eye-
Much Sense-the starkest Madness
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail-
Assent-and you are sane-
Demur-you're straightway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain-

-Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you-Nobody-too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! They'd banish us, you know!

How dreary-to be-Somebody!
To be public-like the Frog-
And croak your name-the livelong day-
To an admiring Bog!

-Emily Dickinson

The splitting apart
Of man from man
Dooms more than splitting
The atom can.

In one blaze, will
All things be gone:
The Empire State
And the Parthenon?

And must the sudden
Atom's flash
Turn cities, statues,
And poems to ash?

Quick! The foe
In us is curled,
More fearsome than any
Foe in the world!

-Louis Ginsberg

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against Fate;
Death lays his icy hands on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and *****.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they ****:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate
And must give up their murmering breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon death's purple alter now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

-James Shirley