"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 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 on 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 foe nor loving friend 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 distant run.

Yours is the earth, and everything that's in it.

And which is more ... You'll be a Man, my son.



"
— Rudyard Kippling

"Three Words of Strength

There are three lessons I would write-
Three words, as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light,
Upon the heart of men.

Have hope! though clouds environ round,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow,
No night but hath its morn.

Have faith! where're thy bark is driven-
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth-
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The inhabitants of earth.

Have love! not love alone for one,
But man as man thy brother call,
And scatter like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all.

Thus grave these lessons on thy soul,
Hope, faith, and love; and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.



"
— Friedrich Schiller

""America for Me"

'Tis fine to see the Old World and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumblyh castles and the statues and kings
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing foutains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her sway!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack!
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars."
— Henry van Dyke 1909