Poems for Life

by The Nightingale-Bamford School

  Sincerely,

  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 imposters 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

  WHITNEY NORTH SEYMOUR JR.

  To The Nightingale-Bamford School:

  This is one of my favorite poems because it confirms the importance of spending time with nature to give beauty and balance to your life. There is nothing more refreshing to the spirit than a walk in the country — whether in the woods or across fields or even along red-rock canyons of the Southwest.

  Sincerely,

  FROM “INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE TO A WOOD”

  Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs

  No school of long experience, that the world

  Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen

  Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,

  To tire thee of it, enter the wild wood

  And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade

  Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze

  That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm

  To thy sick heart.

  — William Cullen Bryant

  ALLY SHEEDY

  Dear Fernanda Winthrop and Class V of

  The Nightingale-Bamford School:

  Thank you for asking me to be a part of the project Lifelines. It’s an honor. I should say the project inspired by Lifelines, I suppose, which was a beautiful gesture to aid needy people and children in Africa. Because your project focuses on the International Rescue Committee to benefit refugee children I chose a poem which I feel speaks to the possibilities of life. It is by my favorite poet, Alice Walker. I think she speaks to the potential transformation we all have inside ourselves. The poem also expresses a hunger for spiritual liberation and a deep love for Life.

  A poem of Ms. Walker’s must be included in this collection because she is such an inspiring, heroic figure to people all over the world: a beautiful writer, a political figure, a strong proponent for change. Thank you once again for this opportunity.

  Sincerely,

  ON STRIPPING BARK FROM MYSELF

  (FOR JANE, WHO SAID TREES DIE FROM IT)

  because women are expected to keep silent about

  their close escapes I will not keep silent

  and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will please

  mark the spot

  where I fall and know I could not live

  silent in my own lies

  hearing their “how nice she is!”

  whose adoration of the retouched image

  I so despise.

  No. I am finished with living

  for what my mother believes

  for what my brother and father defend

  for what my lover elevates

  for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes

  to embrace.

  I find my own

  small person

  a standing self

  against the world

  an equality of wills

  I finally understand.

  My struggle was always against

  an inner darkness: I carry within myself

  the only known keys

  to my death — to unlock life, or close it shut

  forever. A woman who loves wood grains, the cold yellow

  and the sun, I am happy to fight

  all outside murderers

  as I see I must.

  — Alice Walker

  BEVERLY SILLS

  Dear Alison,

  This is not a poem — but it’s my favorite “prose.” I carry a copy in my wallet. There’s nothing wrong with trying and not succeeding. It’s very wrong not to try at all.

  Good luck!

  It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms; the great devotions; and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

  — Theodore Roosevelt

  MARGARET CHASE SMITH

  Dear Antoinette Grannum,

  This project of yours and your classmates sounds like a worthwhile one and I am pleased to send you My Creed, which I have used for many years to live by. I hope this will serve your purpose and wish you well in the future.

  Sincerely,

  My CREED

  My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned but not bought.

  — Margaret Chase Smith

  RONALD B. SOBEL

  Dear Olivia:

  To select one poem from the world’s library of great poetry and declare it to be my favorite poem is as daunting a task as choosing one work of prose and claiming it to be the most significant. In the category of favorite poetry there are any number of selections I could make reaching across the ages back to the time of King David in ancient Israel and going forward to the last decade of the twentieth century.

  There is a tendency, completely understandable, for people to react especially favorably to literature that was authored in a geographical setting that they know very well. It is from that perspective that I have chosen to respond to your request by submitting, as one of my favorite expressions, a simple poem entitled “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The author is Robert Frost, whose literary skill mirrors so clearly the life and labors of rural people who live in New England. My family own a home on a Vermont mountaintop and the scene that Robert Frost evokes in this poem is one with which I am well familiar as I trek through the snow-filled woods on a cold winter’s day.
I have seen the solitary house and the frozen lake and I have heard the sounds of harness bells. I know, as well, that in the beautiful solitude, while walking alone in those woods filled with birch and maple, that I cannot remain there, for there are things still to be done, indeed promises to keep.

  Thank you for asking me to contribute to this wonderful project upon which you are engaging to raise the consciousness of people, so that they will be concerned for refugee children so desperately in need of help.

  Yours sincerely,

  STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

  Whose woods these are I think I know.

  His house is in the village though;

  He will not see me stopping here

  To watch his woods fill up with snow.

  My little horse must think it queer

  To stop without a farmhouse near

  Between the woods and frozen lake

  The darkest evening of the year.

  He gives his harness bells a shake

  To ask if there is some mistake.

  The only other sound’s the sweep

  Of easy wind and downy flake.

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  — Robert Frost

  STEPHEN SONDHEIM

  Dear Lindsay Richardson —

  I have no “favorite” poem, but a short one that I like immensely is by Christopher Logue. Here it is:

  Come to the edge.

  We might fall.

  Come to the edge.

  It’s too high!

  COME TO THE EDGE!

  So they came

  and he pushed

  and they flew.

  As a writer, I think this is the most succinct description of the relationship between the artist and the audience (or viewer or listener) that I’ve ever read.

  Yours sincerely,

  LIV ULLMANN

  Dear Class V:

  My favorite is John Donne’s Meditation #17, “No Man Is an Island.”

  The poem is especially meaningful because to live is to learn the truth that no man is an island — and that we must respect others as we would ourselves want to be respected.

  MEDITATION #17

  No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

  —John Donne

  KURT VONNEGUT

  Dear Emma—

  I congratulate you and your class for wanting to do something about world hunger.

  A poem I often quote in lectures is this one by William Blake:

  The Angel that presided o’er my birth

  Said, “Little creature, form’d of Joy & Mirth,

  Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth.”

  That’s the whole thing, Emma, but it seems to me that there is a whole lot there, if you stop to think about it. It says to me that loving people are born that way, and don’t need any prods or rewards to make them helpful, compassionate and affectionate.

  I sometimes paraphrase it ever so slightly when talking to people who want to be writers and who need advice. In the third line I substitute “write” for “love.”

  Cheers,

  WENDY WASSERSTEIN

  Dear Leslie —

  I am enclosing the first lines of “The Ancient Mariner,” which I had to memorize in 8th grade at The Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. Actually, I still have friends from that time and when we get together, at some point we begin to recite “The Ancient Mariner,” which is odd for girls from Brooklyn! He will always be dear and close to my heart.

  Wendy Wasserstein

  FROM “THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER”

  Part I

  It is an ancient Mariner,

  And he stoppeth one of three.

  “By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

  Now whereof stopp’st thou me?

  The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,

  And I am next of kin;

  The guests are met, the feast is set:

  May’st hear the merry din.”

  He holds him with his skinny hand,

  “There was a ship,” quoth he.

  “Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”

  Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

  He holds him with his glittering eye —

  The Wedding-Guest stood still,

  And listens like a three years’ child:

  The Mariner hath his will.

  The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

  He cannot choose but hear;

  And thus spake on that ancient man,

  The bright-eyed Mariner.

  — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  PAUL WATKINS

  Dear Nicole,

  My choice of poem for your compilation would be Rupert Brooke’s “Clouds.” I haven’t got a copy of it on hand, but you shouldn’t have any trouble tracking it down. Please do forgive me for not finding it myself; things are a bit hectic at the moment and I am leaving to do some research in the Arctic tomorrow. The opening line of the poem is “Down the blue night the unending columns press.” Rupert Brooke was an Englishman who died during the First World War. He writes with innocence and beauty which I believe were permanently extinguished by that war, and that makes his words all the more poignant to me. “Clouds” was the first poem I ever voluntarily memorized, so it has always been a favorite of mine.

  Best of luck with your project. It truly is a worthy cause.

  Yours —

  CLOUDS

  Down the blue night the unending columns press

  In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,

  Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow

  Up to the white moon’s hidden loveliness.

  Some pause in their grave wandering comrade less,

  And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,

  As who would pray good for the world, but know

  Their benediction empty as they bless.

  They say that the Dead die not, but remain

  Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.

  I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,

  In wise majestic melancholy train,

  And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,

  And men, coming and going on the earth.

  — Rupert Brooke

  ELIE WIESEL

  Dear Sophia,

  Thanks for your letter. I am always happy to hear from young people.

  Of course, I think your poetry project is worthwhile (in fact, I am a vice-president of the International Rescue Committee), and therefore I am enclosing a poem for you. It’s by a boy named Motele — and was originally written in Yiddish, which was the language of my childhood as well. I have always found it moving.

  With best wishes —

  From tomorrow on, I shall be sad —

  From tomorrow on!

  Today I will be gay.

  What is the use of sadness — tell me that? —

  Because these evil winds begin to blow?

  Why should I grieve for tomorrow — today?

  Tomorrow may be so good, so sunny,

  Tomorrow the sun may shine for us again;

  We shall no longer need to be sad.

  From tomorrow on, I shall be sad —

  From tomorrow on!

  Not today; no! today I will be glad.

  And every day, no matter how bitter it be,

  I will say:

  From tomorrow on, I shall be sad,

  Not today!

  —Motele

  ELIZABETH WINTHROP

  Dear Erica,

  Than
k you for your letter which I am confused to see is dated June 9, 1993. I received it last week! I wonder if you still wish to receive a poem for your International Rescue Committee book. If so, here is one of my favorite poems. I love it because it reminds us that all the people of the earth belong to one family. Good luck with your project.

  Best Wishes,

  Elizabeth Winthrop

  WILD GEESE

  You do not have to be good.

  You do not have to walk on your knees

  for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

  You only have to let the soft animal of your body

  love what it loves.

  Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

  Meanwhile the world goes on.

  Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

  are moving across the landscapes,

  over the prairies and the deep trees,

  the mountains and the rivers.

  Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air

  are heading home again.

  Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

  the world offers itself to your imagination,

  calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

  over and over announcing your place

  in the family of things.

  — Mary Oliver

  TOM WOLFE

  Dear Miss Kalayjian,

  I must confess that the poem I most often recite to myself and anyone who will listen is Noel Coward’s “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party.” Why? I can’t explain it. The sheer aimless rollicking silliness of it just appeals to me. I offer a sample stanza: