If only...

By Sonnet

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
If you can float in life without your morals drowning
And never in vanity, struggle with time or age.

If you can smile, when the whole world is frowning,
Knowing the veils and candour of laughter and rage.

If you can commit each day and hour to learning
And be wise enough; not your inanity to conceal,
Be brave enough to surrender your heart to yearning
Yet have strength, never to yield your soul to zeal
If you can remain faithful, through life ever changing
And equal respect to wisdom and emotion grant.

If you can know the edge of calm and of deranging
And appreciate the power of silence and exploding rant
If the simple bird songs can stir and inspire you
Or to quench your thirst from morning dew you dare
Know the hearts that secretly admire or detest you
And brilliant minds by the magnificent dreams they bear.

If even in haste you stop to smile with a stranger
Or give of your time and strength for another to care
If you forsake your comfort and brave unfamiliar danger
To uphold the truth you know, and to speak it dare
If you can bear the blizzard of omnipotent delusion

Or the frustrating hesitation and shiver of prudent hand
With patient wisdom delay the judgemental conclusion
Bind your eyes to the heart and seek to understand
Then i guess you are pretty cool...

But if you are the type who falls in love with strangers
Yet act as if your heart has been locked in a deep vault
And avoid crossing roads, perceiving threats and dangers
Of navigating through traffic or a careless drivers fault

If you drink scotch, and boast of alcohol's medicinal assets
Or when contradicted, you argue, scream, cry and run
You are a model of humanity with its most intriguing facets
And, which is more; you are also a hypocrite, my son

- sonnetomatic@gmail.com