Poems of England

This is one of my favourite poems, by Rudyard Kipling...it's so long so I have copied to paste...(hope it works!)

If you can keep your head when all about are losing theirs

and blaming it on you....if you

Ican 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!

One of my very favourites, Sonnet 18 by the man himself, William Shakespeare. I'll bet you all know the first line!!

Shall I compare thee to a summers' day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

And summers' lease hath all too short a date

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines

And often is his gold reflection dimmed

And every fair from fair declines

By chance, or natures' changing course untrimmed

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest.

Nor shall death brag thou wandrest in the shade

When in eternal lines to times thou growest. So long as men can breathe of eyes shall see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.