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!

1680

Sometimes with the Heart
Seldom with the Soul
Scarcer once with the Might
Few—love at all.

On sweet young earth where the myrtle presses,
  Long we lay, when the May was new;
The willow was winding the moon in her tresses,
  The bud of the rose was told with dew.

And now on the brittle ground I'm lying,
  Screaming to die with the dead year's dead;
The stem of the rose is black and drying,
  The willow is tossing the wind from her head.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of ******,
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!

1402

To the stanch Dust
We safe commit thee—
Tongue if it hath,
Inviolate to thee—
Silence—denote—
And Sanctity—enforce thee—
Passenger—of Infinity—

432

Do People moulder equally,
They bury, in the Grave?
I do believe a Species
As positively live

As I, who testify it
Deny that I—am dead—
And fill my Lungs, for Witness—
From Tanks—above my Head—

I say to you, said Jesus—
That there be standing here—
A Sort, that shall not taste of Death—
If Jesus was sincere—

I need no further Argue—
That statement of the Lord
Is not a controvertible—
He told me, Death was dead—

My heart is heavy with many a song
Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
But I can never give you one —
My songs do not belong to me.

Yet in the evening, in the dusk
When moths go to and fro,
In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
Take it, no one will know.

the old ways are the powerless
they can and will do nothing
they are impotent... and dying
the new ways are the living...
and ever the changing...
they are life

Tryptophan, Turkey comas
On a stuffed stomach,
Chock full of dreams
Button bursting insight

So much food
So much family
So much joy
So much to be thankful for

Thankful
Not to be dead,
To be enjoying life
Here on Earth

Thankful
Not to be poor,
To be able afford
The comforts in life

Thankful
Not to be alone,
To have friends and family
Helping to guide me

Stuffed
Sprawled on the couch
Realizing how much I have
Realizing it could all be
Gone within a blink.
Thankfully, I’m here
Thankfully

I’m alright.