SOLITUDE

SOLITUDE
Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost in the air
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care


Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all-
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall


Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and its helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure;
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain’’.

-END-

A poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

NEVER GIVE UP

NEVER GIVE UP

Cripple him and you have a Sir Walter Scott.
Lock him in a prison cell and you have a John Bunyon, a Nelson Mandela
A sprit that fights on
Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge and you have a George Washington.
Raise him in abject poverty and even later try to kill him by failure and you have an Abraham Lincoln
Strike him down with infantile paralysis and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt.
Burn him so severely that the doctors say he will never walk again and you have a Glen Cunningham- who set the world’s one – mile record in 1934.
Deafen him and you have a Beethoven.
Have him or her born black in a society with racial discrimination and you have a Booker T Washington, a Marian Anderson , A martin Luther King..
Call him a slow learner, “retarded” and write him off as uneducable and you have an Albert Einstein
Pile Stark odds against him and show him the trail of historical disadvantages on the path he is choosing to run ...and you get a Barrack Obama
Tell him that the cause cannot be won without a fight, blood and guns and he resists the temptation and sticks to his non-violent cause of change..and you have a Mahatma Gandhi
Born blind and still...the legendary Ray Charles
And do I need to say anything about Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods, Pamela Jelimo, ..et al
Tell Him he’s not photogenic and that he cant sign for Real Madrid and you get a Ronaldihno
Abandon him at 2 years old and his grandma takes him in...with a piano and a dream and you have a Kirk Franklin
Above all, Manger born ,sought to be killed when young, discriminated upon, rejected when revealed and even crucified for our redemption...now seated at the Right hand of the Father and in His Name we are Saved...Jesus the Christ
Me and you and our story not yet told...
That deserted, desolate boy or girl out there..Probably abused, written off by the society, with no education, decent livelihood, no money, barren mother, sick child, depressed father, hopeless situation, our dying world,...

Let us not give up. Let us remember that the world has no place for quitters. Let us summon our Faith; “Only be Courageous and Strong” the Lord would tell Joshua...Let us fight the good fight ; Let us be counted as worthy of our price; Let our story etch itself in the annals of History for posterity’s sake. Let our song be that hope to someone else. Let us remember the Promise.”He who is in Us is Greater than he who is in the world”. “Only be courageous and Strong”.

-END-

Partly Sampled from Philip Baker’s “Secrets of Super Achievers”.