|
|
|
|
Best Poems From
RUDYARD KIPLING
(30 December 1865 18 January 1936)
|
|
| |
|
|
1.
|
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 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!
Rudyard Kipling
Read more: loss poems, trust poems, son poems, truth poems, dream poems, lost poems, hate poems, running poems, friend poems
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
2.
|
Our Lady of the Sackcloth
There was a Priest at Philae,
Tongue-tied, feeble, and old;
And the daily prayer to the Virgin
Was all the Office he could.
The others were ill-remembered,
Mumbled and hard to hear;
But to Mary, the two-fold Virgin,
Always his voice rang clear.
And the congregation mocked him,
And the weight of the years he bore,
And they sent word to the Bishop
That he should not serve them more.
(Never again at the Offering
When the Bread and the Body are one:
Oh, never the picture of Mary
Watching him serve her Son!)
Kindly and wise was the Bishop.
Unto the Priest said he: -
Patience till thou art stronger,
And keep meantime with me.
Patience a little; it may be
The Lord shall loosen thy tongue
And then thou shalt serve at the Offering
As it was when we were young.
And the Priest obeyed and was silent,
And the Bishop gave him leave
To walk alone in the desert
Where none should see him grieve.
(Never again at the Offering
When the Wine and the Blood are one!
Oh, never the picture of Mary
Watching him honour her Son!)
Saintly and clean was the Bishop,
Ruling himself aright
With prayer and fast in the daytime
And scourge and vigil at night.
Out of his zeal he was minded
To add one penance the more
A garment of harshest sackcloth
Under the robes he wore.
He gathered the cloth in secret
Lest any should know and praise
The shears, the palm and the packthread
And laboured it many ways.
But he had no skill in the making,
And failed and fretted the while;
Till the stood a Woman before him,
Smiling as Mothers smile.
Her feet were burned by the desert
Like a desert-dweller she trod
Even the two-fold Virgin,
Spouse and Bearer of God!
She took the shears and the sacking,
The needle and stubborn thread,
She cut, she shaped, and she sewed them,
And, This shall be blessed, she said.
She passed in the white hot noontide,
On a wave of the quivering air;
And the Bishops eyes were opened,
And he fell on his face in prayer.
But far from the smouldering censers
Far from the chanted praise
Oh, far from the pictures of Mary
That had watched him all his days
Far in the desert by Philae
The old Priest walked forlorn,
Till he saw in the head of her Riders
A Queen of the Desert-born.
High she swayed on her camel,
Beautiful to behold:
And her beast was belled with silver,
And her veils were spotted with gold!
Low she leaned from her litter
Soft she spoke in his ear: -
Nay, I have watched thy sorrow!
Nay, but the end is near!
For again thou shalt serve at the Offering
And thy tongue shall be loosed in praise,
And again thou shalt sing unto Mary
Who has watched thee all thy days.
Go in peace to the Bishop,
Carry him word from me
That the Woman who sewed the sackcloth
Would have him set thee free!
Rudyard Kipling
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
3.
|
A Child's Garden
R. L. Stevenson
Now there is nothing wrong with me
Except -- I think it's called T.B.
And that is why I have to lay
Out in the garden all the day.
Our garden is not very wide
And cars go by on either side,
And make an angry-hooty noise
That rather startles little boys.
But worst of all is when they take
Me out in cars that growl and shake,
With charabancs so dreadful-near
I have to shut my eyes for fear.
But when I'm on my back again,
I watch the Croydon aeroplane
That flies across to France, and sings
Like hitting thick piano-strings.
When I am strong enough to do
The things I'm truly wishful to,
I'll never use a car or train
But always have an aeroplane;
And just go zooming round and round,
And frighten Nursey with the sound,
And see the angel-side of clouds,
And spit on all those motor-crowds!
Rudyard Kipling
Read more: car poems, angel poems, fear poems, child poems, children poems
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
4.
|
Mother o' Mine
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
Rudyard Kipling
Read more: mother poems, sea poems, love poems
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|