Favorite Poems

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

What is Good?

"What is the real good? "I asked in a musing mood,
"Order," said the law court;
"Knowledge," said the school;'
Truth," said the wise man;
"Pleasure," said the fool;
"Love," said the maiden;
"Beauty," said the page;
"Freedom," said the dreamer;
"Home," said the sage;"
Fame," said the soldier;
"Equity," the seer.
Spake my heart full sadly
"The answer is not here.
"Then within my bosom
Softly this I heard:
"Each heart holds the secret,
Kindness is the word."

**John Boyle O'Reilly

The Best Thing In The World

What's the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
What's the best thing in the world?
—Something out of it, I think.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Mud Pies

Down in a little back garden,
Under a sunny sky,
We made mud pies together-
My little sweetheart and I.
Stained was the little pink apron,
Muddy the jacket blue,
As we stirred and mixed and tasted,
Out in the sun and dew.

Why do I dream of that garden,
I who am old and wise?
Why am I longing, longing,
For one of those old mud pies?
Oh, for the little pink apron,
Oh, for the jacket blue,
For the blessed faith of childhood
When make-believes are true.

-Florence A. Jones

I am Not Alone

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!
​
The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone!
​
The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!

​~Gabriela Mistral