An RWC word to the wise

Well you can't beat this in an International forum can you?

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 impostors 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!


Trite and hackneyed I know. But how true.


If you can beat those lines as a summary of how you should deport yourself in v2, then I'd like to hear them..

Note to self: read and re-read verse one.

Its not about 606, old chum.
Its life.

and thanks for posting.

We're being deported?

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Wales all over. True then. True now.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –

Love that Kipling poem. Love Longenecker's "The Victor" as well, it was used as a prelude to the final weekend of 6N matches.

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

Sorry, had to pop this in, love it.

What do I care of Wales? It is by accident and chance
That I am living here freely. She isn't on a map

And is nothing but a piece of land in a hidden creek,
And a bit of a nuisance to those who believe in order.

And who dwells in this place? tell me.
Who but the dregs of its people? Make sure you don't

Cackle about unities and nations and countries all the time:
There are enough of those without Wales, to have in this world.

I have surfeited for some time with all this groaning.
The Welsh, high and mighty, making their noise.

I go for a walk, to avoid their speeches and literature,
Back to familiarity, with my imagination amiss.

And now I am there. Thank you for being lost
And far from the excitement of their extremist words.

This is Snowdon and its crew; this is the sharpness and the baldness of the land;
This is the lake and the river and the cliff; and upon my word

This is the place of my birth. But look, between Earth and heaven
There are voices and spectres all over the place.

I'm starting to become unsteady now; and I'll say to you,
There is some weariness washing over me;

And I can hear Wales' claws torturing my breast.
God save me, for I cannot leave this place

T.H Parry-Williams'

That andy powells minder,

Is stunning. Just stunning.
9.5/10

It's a translation of the Welsh original.

His grave is beside no church,
neither under the shadow of any ancient yew.
It is in a spot safer and more sacred still.
Rain does not fall on it, hail nor sleet chill no sere sod above it.
It is forever green with the green of eternal spring.
Sunny the light on it; close and warm and dear it lies,
sheltered from all storms, from all cold or grey oblivion.
Time shall not touch it; decay shall not dishonour it;
for that grave is in the heart of every true Cymro
There, for ever, from generation unto generation,
grey Owains's heart lies dreaming on, dreaming on.

we're a fey old bunch arent we?

make out we're all roughy toughy, but at the end of the day we're a bunch of softy poets.

cant wait to get my 4 year old boy acting the same!!

Portnoy wrote:That andy powells minder,

Is stunning. Just stunning.
9.5/10

funny when the hiraeth can grab you

Let the wind blow from the East, let the storm from the sea roar
Let the sky split with lightning, let thunderbolts shout encore.
Let the faint-hearted keep wailing, let the serfs grovel and fawn
In spite of the darkness around us, we're ready to greet a new dawn.

There's you Penfro a Welsh literate
And me just an English pseudo-scepto-scientist at heart.

p.s. I'd like to get the references for your verses. Please.

Nobody. Nobody - in my experience - has ever managed to convey his soul better to a philistine like me better than Dylan Thomas. Or Bob Dylan in song...