Tuesday, February 28, 2012

To the boys on board, a poem

In six hours we should be arriving at Shelter Bay Marina, Panama. We
willmeet our agent and do all the officials for crossing Panama Canal.
Into the Pacific Ocean which covers about 70% of Planet Earth. The
following poem by Rudyard Kipling is a great chart to plot your life by.

When 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 les,
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 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 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 wth 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!

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