IF

We took a very impromptu trip yesterday and spent the night in Bartlesville, OK.  I needed to get out of town, to shake off winter, to get a breath of fresh air.  Back home tonight, but what a refreshing trip it was. 


As we were leaving Bartlesville this morning, someone told us to go to Dewey for a little antiquing---------a little was no lie.  There was very little, but we did find one little shop that peaked our interest--------something more than hoarded junk.  I looked over and saw a framed poem.  I'm always intrigued by framed words.  Well, I started to read it and was totally blown away.  For some reason this poem by Rudyard Kipling seemed to hit home.  There's a lot going on in this world that I am very unhappy and even sad about..............but these words written in 1895, first published in 1910 "Rewards and Fairies" (I assume that to be a magazine) seemed to ease me.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

If

by Rudyard Kipling, 1895

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 Kinds - 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, by Son!  

Just a little side note:  45 years ago when we were dating, my husband quoted me poetry under the stars on my back stoop of my duplex.  Today, he quoted the first few lines of this poem................He's still got it!  And, by the way, that framed poem is now in my possession.  Now I have to find just the place for it.

I love you.