If-Rudyard Kipling.

[Major Starbold]

This is one I like, which is yours?

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!

[Victor29]

Do you like this short poem? I had it published.

There are many words I could use
To define my love, my pride.
There are many ways to convey
The way I feel inside.
An eloquent vocabulary
Could describe the prize I've won
But I need only two small words,
My source of joy.......my son.


I have three sons and if you knew them you would know it could apply to any one of them.

[Ck]

That's lovely Vic

[Victor29]

Funny, I was filling up as I typed it!

That and the eulogy I wrote for my Mum's funeral always make me weepy when I read 'em. Daft innit when I wrote 'em?

[Ck]

It's daft in a nice way.

[Victor29]

I wrote 'My Joy' for any one of the boys not one in particular. I could have written about my sons but the only word I could find to rhyme with sons was guns!

[mimseycal]

It is indeed powerful Victor29, very evocative ...