"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you..."
Jealousy for a poem... Am I inflicted? Yes. I would call it longing; dreaming to be as good as that poet or singer or actor or dancer. Jealousy is a harsh word, but it sounds about right. Maybe envy, at the very least.
"If you can wait and not be tired by waiting..."
"If" by Rudyard Kipling. This was one of the very first poems I came across in our poetry notebook. Immediately after reading it, I folded down the corner of the page and read it again. I like poems that make sense, or that i can make sense of. The metaphors have to be simple enough or I will think too hard and dislike the poem. "If" is straightforward and easy to follow, but it still made me think.
"Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies..."
I felt it was speaking to me. How I can be the bigger person. How I can balance the good and bad in life and make them both to benefit. Things we have deal with from high school on. That's how I want my poetry to be. Words people can relate to, take strength from. I am jealous of how Mr. Kipling was able to express his thoughts so clearly. That is the biggest struggle for me and it is frustrating to see it come naturally to others when I work so hard at it.
"If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters 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 wornout tools;
...you'll be a Man my son!"
Well said. Thank you for putting some time and thought into this post.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line in this poem is the one about triumph and disaster. I saw an interview with an actor who quoted this poem. He quoted that line and talked about how true it was. Don't ever get too high or too low. Because success isn't as great as you think it is and failure isn't as bad.