Friday 15 October 2010

If not (poem)

On the wall in my mother-in-law's bathroom is a copy of Kipling's IF. I have often puzzled over it and played around with it. Redaing aloud everys econd word of each line etc. Last week David the Cake maker at work (He did my legendary 60th birthday cake) asked me how I was. I found myself misquoting If in reply and that set me off!

IF NOT

IF you can lose your head when all about you
Are keeping theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can doubt yourself when all men trust you,
But make allowance for their trusting too;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of frantic pace,
Yours is not the Earth and nothing that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a fool, my son!

I WANDER'D lonely as a clown
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden caterpillars;

In Chorlton did Kubla Khan
A stately organic cafe decree:
Where Mersey, the sacred river, ran
Through sewage measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Shall I compare thee to a winter's day?
Thou art more cold and more grumpy.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And winter's lease hath all too long a date.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Chorlton's gardens green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On Chorlton's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded beer?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic cafes?

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