[_If_]

Although I have written many poems throughout my life, unfortunately none of them can be counted as inspirational. However, as a very young child, I read both of the following poems (as many of you have as well), and somehow through the years, these words, often read and recited, have been my spirit when I was lacking, my motivation when I was tired, my courage when I was scared, and frequently served as my guidance when I was unsure. I had the delight not too long ago, when my son was 7, to read them both to him. I remember when I asked him if he would mind if I substituted his bedtime story with a poem. "Awww, mom. Poems are dumb, and they are for girls anyway. You were supposed to read me about Harry Houdini tonight". I promised him that I would read the book we had bought about Houdini the next night if he would just listen to these two poems. Imagine my suprise when I looked up after finishing the first one to see tears streaming down his face! We re-read "If" about 10 times that night, and read "The Road Not Taken" a couple times as well. He called me the other day (he is visiting his dad right now) and begged me to read it to him over the phone (along with several others that have become our favorites in the years to follow), and we still got choked up =) Anyway, although I am sure that most of you are familiar with these two beautiful poems, I wanted to post them here for you to re-read, in case it has been a while:

"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 all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath 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


"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost