If

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 all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath 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 ~

Expect Nothing

Edward Hopper

Stairway

Expect Nothing

Expect nothing. Live frugally

On surprise.

Become a stranger

To need of pity

Or, if compassion be freely

Given out

Take only enough

Stop short of urge to plead

Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger

Than your own small heart

Or greater than a star;

Tame wild disappointment

With caress unmoved and cold

Make of it a parka

For your soul.

Discover the reason why

So tiny a human midget

Exists at all

So scared unwise

But expect nothing. Live frugally

On surprise.

~ Alice Walker ~

The Summer Day

Claude Monet

femme assise dans le jardin

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver ~

Solitude

Edvard Munch

Eve on Karl Johan

Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone.

For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,

But has trouble enough of it's own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air.

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go.

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all.

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a long and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~

Joy

Henri Matisse

The Dance

Joy

Let a joy keep you.

Reach out your hands

And take it when it runs by,

As the Apache dancer

Clutches his woman.

I have seen them

Live long and laugh loud,

Sent on singing, singing,

Smashed to the heart

Under the ribs

With a terrible love.

Joy always,

Joy everywhere--

Let joy kill you!

Keep away from the little deaths.

~ Carl Sandburg ~

Regret

Vincent Van Gogh

Old Man in Sorrow

Regret

It's not for laws I've broken

That bitter tears I've wept,

But solemn vows I've spoken

And promises unkept;

It's not for sins committed

My heart is full of rue,

but gentle acts omitted,

Kind deeds I did not do.

I have outlived the blindness,

The selfishness of youth;

The canker of unkindness,

The cruelty of truth;

The searing hurt of rudeness . . .

By mercies great and small,

I've come to reckon goodness

The greatest gift of all.

Let us be helpful ever

to those who are in need,

And each new day endeavour

To do some gentle deed;

For faults beyond our grieving,

What kindliness atone;

On earth by love achieving

A Heaven of our own.

~ Robert William Service ~

Mother to Son

Edvard Munch

Vampire (Love and Pain)

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t be no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor-

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now-

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

~ James Langston Hughes ~

Advice to my Son

Mary Cassatt

Alexander Cassatt and His Son Robert

Advice to my Son

The trick is, to live your days,

as if each one may be your last

(for they go fast, and young men lose their lives

in strange and unimaginable ways)

but at the same time, plan long range

(for they go slow: if you survive

the shattered windshield and the bursting shell

you will arrive

at our approximation here below

of heaven or hell).

To be specific, between the peony and the rose

plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;

beauty is nectarand nectar,

in a desert, saves -

but the stomach craves stronger sustenance

than the honied vine.

Therefore, marry a pretty girl

after seeing her mother;

show your soul to one man,

work with another,

and always serve bread with your wine.

But, son,

always serve wine.

~ J. Peter Meinke ~

The Eagle and the Mole

Leon Spilliaert

Vertigo, or Magic Staircase

The Eagle and the Mole

Avoid the reeking herd,

Shun the polluted flock,

Live like that stoic bird,

The eagle of the rock.

The huddled warmth of crowds

Begets and fosters hate;

He keeps above the clouds

His cliff inviolate.

When flocks are folded warm,

And herds to shelter run,

He sails above the storm,

He stares into the sun.

If in the eagle's track

Your sinews cannot leap,

Avoid the lathered pack,

Turn from the steaming sheep.

If you would keep your soul

From spotted sight or sound,

Live like the velvet mole:

Go burrow underground.

And there hold intercourse

With roots of trees and stones,

With rivers at their source,

And disembodied bones.

~ Elinor Wylie ~

Eternity

Thomas Eakins

Baby at Play

Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.

~ William Blake ~