The Dead

‘Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.’

The Dead
James Joyce

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

 

The Warrior Poet: Snap, Snap! (and You’re Thankful)

By Rob Sanders

When you’re cold and alone

On the dark side of night,

Your lying on rocks

Shivering – cold or fright?

The mortars are booming

across the valley below,

And you’re thankful.

 

Snap Snap as rounds whizz past.

Snap snap as rounds pass close.

Crack crack the rounds start on rock.

You hunch down still deeper

try to keep the watch.

Boom, Boom

And you’re thankful.

 

Now it’s done, it’s gone

It’s all over now.

Someone is dead,

And someone is not.

Nothing is left, but

The pain and the blood,

Nothing is left, but

The night and the gun.

And you’re thankful.

 

Read the Original Article at Havok Journal