‘A Man Once Walked Out Of His House’ by Daniil Kharms

A man once walked out of his house

with a walking stick and a sack,

and on he went,

and on he went:

he never did turn back.

 

He walked as far as he could see:

he saw what lay ahead.

He never drank,

he never slept,

nor slept nor drank nor ate.

 

Then once upon a morning

he entered a dark wood

and on that day,

and on that day

he disappeared for good.

 

If anywhere by any chance

you meet him in his travels,

then hurry please

then hurry please,

then hurry please and tell us.

 

by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)

a.k.a. Даниил Иванович Ювачёв (Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov)

(1937)

translated by Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky

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If- by Rudyard Kipling

‘Brother Square-Toes’ – Rewards and Fairies

 

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!

 

by Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)

Written in 1895

First published in Rewards and Fairies 1910

If… by John Rice

If ships sailed on the motorway

And potato crisps were blue,

If football boots were made of silk

And a lamp-post wore a shoe;

If motorbikes ran upwards

And milk floats really floated;

It beds were full of boulders

And peas were sugar-coated;

If flies wore army jackets

And eggs laid little chickens;

If spacemen had a panther each

And insects studied Dickens;

If babies’ prams were motorised

And you listened to your conscience,

If life was always back to front

You wouldn’t be reading this nonscience!

 

– by John Rice