Stumbled across these lines after a long time. So long, I don’t remember the last time I’d read them…
The last paragraph of “If”, by Rudyard Kipling.
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!
And then one thing led to the other and stumbled across another beautiful poem, “Invictus” by Henley.
I hope it is alright to reproduce it here:
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.
I’m not big on poetry, but some of them just tend to stick with you. It reminds me of another Marathi poem, “Kana”, by Kusumagraj. In case you’re a Maharashtrian and haven’t had a chance to read it, well, you should probably add it to the top of your to-do list…
Tech Tidbits 