Winning Words

by William Sieghart

‘That is not it at all,

  That is not what I meant at all.’

  . . . . .

  No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

  Am an attendant lord, one that will do

  To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

  Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

  Deferential, glad to be of use,

  Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

  Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

  At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –

  Almost, at times, the Fool.

  I grow old … I grow old …

  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

  Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?

  I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

  I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

  I do not think that they will sing to me.

  I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

  When the wind blows the water white and black.

  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

  Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

  WALTER D. WINTLE

  Thinking

  If you think you are beaten, you are.

  If you think you dare not, you don’t.

  If you like to win but think you can’t,

  It’s almost a cinch you won’t.

  If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.

  For out in the world we find

  Success begins with a fellow’s will.

  It’s all in the state of mind.

  If you think you are out classed, you are.

  You’ve got to think high to rise.

  You’ve got to be sure of your-self before

  You can ever win the prize.

  Life’s battles don’t always go

  To the stronger or faster man.

  But sooner or later, the man who wins

  Is the man who thinks he can.

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  Up-Hill

  Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

  Yes, to the very end.

  Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

  From morn to night, my friend.

  But is there for the night a resting-place?

  A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

  May not the darkness hide it from my face?

  You cannot miss that inn.

  Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

  Those who have gone before.

  Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

  They will not keep you standing at that door.

  Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

  Of labour you shall find the sum.

  Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

  Yea, beds for all who come.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  from Auguries of Innocence

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand

  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

  And Eternity in an hour.

  SEAN O’BRIEN

  Dignified

  Sports Pages: 3. The Olympics

  On grim estates at dawn, on college tracks,

  In rings, in wheelchairs, velodromes and pools,

  While we snore on towards our heart attacks,

  They will outstrip the bullet and the fax,

  They will rewrite the body and its rules.

  Athletes who amazed Zeus and Apollo,

  Rivalling their supernatural ease,

  Must make do nowadays with us, who follow,

  Breathless, on a billion TVs.

  Should we believe it’s us they aim to please?

  The purpose stays essentially the same:

  To do what’s difficult because they can,

  To sign in gold an ordinary name

  Across the air from Georgia to Japan,

  To change the world by mastering a game.

  The rest of us, left waiting at the start,

  Still celebrate, as those the gods adore

  Today stake everybody’s claims for more

  By showing life itself becoming art,

  Applauded by a planetary roar –

  The gun, the clock, the lens, all testify

  That those who win take liberties with time:

  The sprinter’s bow, the vaulter’s farewell climb,

  The swimmer who escapes her wake, deny

  What all the gods insist on, that we die.

  ROBERT BROWNING

  Pippa’s Song

  The year’s at the spring

  And day’s at the morn;

  Morning’s at seven;

  The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

  The lark’s on the wing;

  The snail’s on the thorn:

  God’s in his heaven –

  All’s right with the world!

  DYLAN THOMAS

  And death shall have no dominion

  And death shall have no dominion.

  Dead men naked they shall be one

  With the man in the wind and the west moon;

  When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

  They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

  Though they go mad they shall be sane,

  Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

  Though lovers be lost love shall not;

  And death shall have no dominion.

  And death shall have no dominion.

  Under the windings of the sea

  They lying long shall not die windily;

  Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

  Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

  Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

  And the unicorn evils run them through;

  Split all ends up they shan’t crack;

  And death shall have no dominion.

  And death shall have no dominion.

  No more may gulls cry at their ears

  Or waves break loud on the seashores;

  Where blew a flower may a flower no more

  Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

  Though they be mad and dead as nails,

  Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

  Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

  And death shall have no dominion.

  JOHN BETJEMAN

  Seaside Golf

  How straight it flew, how long it flew,

  It clear’d the rutty track

  And soaring, disappeared from view

  Beyond the bunker’s back –

  A glorious, sailing, bounding drive

  That made me glad I was alive.

  And down the fairway, far along

  It glowed a lonely white;

  I played an iron sure and strong

  And clipp’d it out of sight.

  And spite of grassy banks between

  I knew I’d find it on the green.

  And so I did. It lay content

  Two paces from the pin;

  A steady putt and then it went

  Oh, most securely in.

  The very turf rejoiced to see

  That quite unprecedented three.

  Ah! seaweed smells from sandy caves

  And thyme and mist in whiffs,

  In-coming tide, Atlantic waves

  Slapping the sunny cliffs,

  Lark song and sea sounds in the air

  And splendour, splendour everywhere.

  ARCHILOCHUS

  Some Saian sports my splendid shield:

  I had to leave it in a wood,

  but saved my skin. Well, I don’t care –

  I’ll get another just as good.

  translated from the Greek by M. L. West

  WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

 
Invictus

  Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

  I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance

  I have not winced nor cried aloud.

  Under the bludgeonings of chance

  My head is bloody, but unbowed.

  Beyond this place of wrath and tears

  Looms but the Horror of the shade,

  And yet the menace of the years

  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

  It matters not how strait the gate,

  How charged with punishments the scroll,

  I am the master of my fate:

  I am the captain of my soul.

  STEPHEN DUNN

  Happiness

  A state you must dare not enter

  with hopes of staying,

  quicksand in the marshes, and all

  the roads leading to a castle

  that doesn’t exist.

  But there it is, as promised,

  with its perfect bridge above

  the crocodiles,

  and its doors forever open.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  from Milton

  And did those feet in ancient time.

  Walk upon Englands mountains green:

  And was the holy Lamb of God,

  On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

  And did the Countenance Divine,

  Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

  And was Jerusalem builded here,

  Among these dark Satanic Mills?

  Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

  Bring me my Arrows of desire:

  Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

  Bring me my Chariot of fire!

  I will not cease from Mental Fight,

  Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:

  Till we have built Jerusalem,

  In Englands green & pleasant Land.

  ADRIAN MITCHELL

  Celia Celia

  When I am sad and weary

  When I think all hope has gone

  When I walk along High Holborn

  I think of you with nothing on

  THEODORE ROETHKE

  The Waking

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

  I learn by going where I have to go.

  We think by feeling. What is there to know?

  I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  Of those so close beside me, which are you?

  God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

  And learn by going where I have to go.

  Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

  The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  Great Nature has another thing to do

  To you and me; so take the lively air,

  And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

  This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

  What falls away is always. And is near.

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  I learn by going where I have to go.

  W. B. YEATS

  He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

  Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

  Enwrought with golden and silver light,

  The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

  Of night and light and the half-light,

  I would spread the cloths under your feet:

  But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

  I have spread my dreams under your feet;

  Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  ROBERT BLY

  Watering the Horse

  How strange to think of giving up all ambition!

  Suddenly I see with such clear eyes

  The white flake of snow

  That has just fallen on the horse’s mane!

  ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  from Sonnets from the Portuguese

  XLIII

  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

  For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

  I love thee to the level of everyday’s

  Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

  I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

  I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

  I love thee with the passion put to use

  In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

  With my lost saints, – I love thee with the breath,

  Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,

  I shall but love thee better after death.

  WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

  My Heart Leaps Up

  My heart leaps up when I behold

  A rainbow in the sky:

  So was it when my life began;

  So is it now I am a man;

  So be it when I shall grow old,

  Or let me die!

  The Child is father of the Man;

  And I could wish my days to be

  Bound each to each by natural piety.

  DON PATERSON

  Being

  A version of Rilke

  Silent comrade of the distances,

  Know that space dilates with your own breath;

  ring out, as a bell into the Earth

  from the dark rafters of its own high place –

  then watch what feeds on you grow strong again.

  Learn the transformations through and through:

  what in your life has most tormented you?

  If the water’s sour, turn it into wine.

  Our senses cannot fathom this night, so

  be the meaning of their strange encounter;

  at their crossing, be the radiant centre.

  And should the world itself forget your name

  say this to the still earth: I flow.

  Say this to the quick stream: I am.

  ROBERT FROST

  The Road Not Taken

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

  And sorry I could not travel both

  And be one traveller, long I stood

  And looked down one as far as I could

  To where it bent in the undergrowth;

  Then took the other, as just as fair,

  And having perhaps the better claim,

  Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

  Though as for that the passing there

  Had worn them really about the same,

  And both that morning equally lay

  In leaves no step had trodden black.

  Oh, I kept the first for another day!

  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

  I doubted if I should ever come back.

  I shall be telling this with a sigh

  Somewhere ages and ages hence:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

  I took the one less travelled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  If I can stop one Heart from breaking

  I shall not live in vain

  If I can ease one Life the Aching

  Or cool one Pain

  Or help one fainting Robin

  Unto his Nest again

  I shall not live in Vain.

  EDMUND BLUNDEN

  Report on Experience

  I have been young, and now am not too old;

  And I have seen the righteous forsaken,

  His health, his honour and his quality taken.

  This is not what we were formerly told.

  I have seen a green country, useful to the race,

  Knocked silly with guns an
d mines, its villages vanished,

  Even the last rat and the last kestrel banished –

  God bless us all, this was peculiar grace.

  I knew Seraphina; Nature gave her hue,

  Glance, sympathy, note, like one from Eden.

  I saw her smile warp, heard her lyric deaden;

  She turned to harlotry; – this I took to be new.

  Say what you will, our God sees how they run.

  These disillusions are His curious proving

  That He loves humanity and will go on loving;

  Over there are faith, life, virtue in the sun.

  STEVIE SMITH

  Conviction

  I like to get off with people,