Famous Inspirational Poems - Page 3

41 - 42 of 42 Poems

41. If
- By Rudyard Kipling
Famous Poem

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Rudyard Kipling was an English poet who lived from 1865-1936. He also wrote many children's stories. The poem's line, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same," is written on the wall of the players' entrance at Wimbledon.

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!

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I was never an avid reader nor appreciated poetry most of my life. My dad sent me this poem for my 28th birthday, printed along with a lovely card. Living many miles away from him I often...

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42. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
- By Emily Dickinson
Famous Poem

Emily Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is the author of almost 2,000 poems. Only after she died in 1886 were her poems discovered. In this metaphorical poem the bird is a symbol for hope. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers is written in quatrains and uses an ABCB rhyme scheme

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

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I recited this poem in grade six and it has been an inspiration for me ever since. Wonderful work!

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41 - 42 of 42 Poems

Famous Inspirational Poems - Page 3

41. If

Rudyard Kipling was an English poet who lived from 1865-1936. He also wrote many children's stories. The poem's line, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same," is written on the wall of the players' entrance at Wimbledon.

42. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

Emily Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is the author of almost 2,000 poems. Only after she died in 1886 were her poems discovered. In this metaphorical poem the bird is a symbol for hope. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers is written in quatrains and uses an ABCB rhyme scheme