Creative Works

There was a merry passenger,

a messenger, a mariner:

he built a gilded gondola

to wander in and had in her

a load of yellow oranges

and porridge for his provender;

he perfumed her with marjoram,

and cardamom and lavender.

He called the winds of argosies

with cargoes in to carry him

across the rivers seventeen

that lay between to tarry him.

He landed all in loneliness

where stonily the pebbles on

the running river Derrilyn

goes merrily for ever on.

He journeyed then through meadow-lands

to Shadow-land that dreary lay,

and under hill and over hill

went roving still a weary way.

He sat and sang a melody,

his errantry a-tarrying;

he begged a pretty butterfly

that fluttered by to marry him.

She scorned him and she scoffed at him,

she laughed at him unpitying;

so long he studied wizardry,

and sigaldry and smithying.

He wove a tissue airy-thin

to snare her in; to follow her

he made him beetle-leather-wing,

and feather wing of swallow hair.

He caught her in bewilderment

with filament of spider-thread;

he made her soft pavilions

of lilies, and a bridal bed

of flowers and of thistle-down

to nestle down and rest her in;

and silken webs of filmy white

and silver light he dressed her in.

He threaded gems and necklaces,

but recklessly she squandered them,

and fell to bitter quarrelling;

then sorrowing he wandered on,

and there he left her withering,

as shivering he fled away;

with windy weather following,

on swallow-wing he sped away.

He made a shield and morion

of coral and carnelian,

and silvered was the handle of

his sword that shone like a sun.

He passed the archipelagoes

where yellow quays and harbour crowd

with masts of gold and silver boughs

and pavements bright as mirrors proud.

He battled with the Balrog's breed

and harried dragon's hoarded gold,

and all the goblins of the hills

he drove into their dens of old.

He made a song for every star,

a song for every season fair,

and wandered wide o'er land and sea

with never end to his affair.

He sought the sun in summer time

and followed moon through winter cold,

and watched the stars in their courses

and the clouds in their manifold.

He danced among the daisies

and the daffodils in spring,

and he blew on his silver bugle

till the woods with echoes ring.

He wandered up the mountain's side

where shadows never fall

and he found a crystal fountain

and he drank from it his fill.

He sang of battles, long and loud,

of love, of loss, of laughter,

and made a harp of holly-wood

to play for ever after.

Figure it out for yourself, my lad,

You've all that the greatest of men have had,

Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes,

And a brain to use if you would be wise.

With this equipment they all began,

So start for the top and say, 'I can.'

Look them over, the wise and great,

They take their food from a common plate,

And similar knives and forks they use,

With similar laces they tie their shoes,

The world considers them brave and smart,

But you've all they had when they made their start.

You can triumph and come to skill,

You can be great if only you will,

You're well equipped for what fight you choose,

You have legs and arms and a brain to use,

And the man who has risen, great deeds to do

Began his life with no more than you.

You are the handicap you must face,

You are the one who must choose your place,

You must say where you want to go,

How much you will study the truth to know.

God has equipped you for life,

But He Lets you decide what you want to be.

Courage must come from the soul within,

The man must furnish the will to win,

So figure it out for yourself, my lad,

You were born with all that the great have had,

With your equipment they all began.

Get hold of yourself, and say: 'I can.'

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.

If you think you are beaten, you are;

If you think you dare not, you don't.

If you like to win, but you think you can't,

It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you've lost;

For out in this world we find

Success begins with a fellow's will,

It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are;

You've got to think high to rise.

You've got to be sure of yourself before

You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man;

But sooner or later the man who wins

Is the one who thinks he can.

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 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!

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.