I found this great little poem in the papers belonging to an Aunt of mine who passed many years ago. I hope you enjoy it and take it's meaning to heart. Lionel
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But he, with a chuckle replied,
That, “Maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say no till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried, he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody said, “Oh you’ll never do that –
At least, no-one ever has done it;
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing he knew, he’d begun it.
With the lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophecy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in, with a bit of a grin,
Then take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That cannot be done, and you’ll do it!
Edgar A. Gust
The author was Edgar Guest, an American writer of popular verse in the first half of the last century. From Wikipedia:
ReplyDelete"Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881, Birmingham, England – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th Century and became known as the People’s Poet.
"In 1891, Guest came with his family to the United States from England. After he began at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy and then a reporter, his first poem appeared December 11, 1898. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America, and his sentimental, optimistic poems were in the same vein as the light verse of Nick Kenny, who wrote syndicated columns during the same decades.
"From his first published work in the Detroit Free Press until his death in 1959, Guest penned some 11,000 poems which were syndicated in some 300 newspapers and collected in more than 20 books, including A Heap o' Livin' (1916) and Just Folks (1917). Guest was made Poet Laureate of Michigan, the only poet to have been awarded the title."