Stick to Your Task

 

Stick to your task ’till it sticks to you.
Beginners are many, but enders are few.
Honor, power, place and praise,
Will always come to the one who stays.

Stick to your task ’till it sticks to you
Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it too,
For out of the bend, the sweat, and the smile,
Will come life’s victories after a while.

-Author Unknown

(Quoted by President Thomas S. Monson)

Poem: A Ballad Of China

 

A Ballad Of China

Laura E. Richards

 

Her Name was Dilliki Dolliki Dinah;

Niece she was to the Empress of China;

Fair she was as a morning in May,

When Hy Kokolorum stole her away.

 

Hy was a wizard, I’d have you know;

Wicked as weasels and black as a crow;

Lived in castle a-top a hill;

Had a panther whose name was Bill;

 

Used to ride him around and around,

Creeping and peeping close to the ground;

Working mischief wherever he could;

Nothing about him in any way good!

 

Saw the maiden one midsummer morn,

(sweetest creature that ever was born!),

Creeped and peeped in his wizardly way,

Catched her and snatched her and stole her away!

 

All through China arose a cry:

“Some one has stolen out Dilliki Di!”

People gathered in every forum,

Crying, “It must be Hy Kokolorum!”

 

All the Barons in China land,

Ling the lofty and Bing the Bland,

Kong the Kingly and Bond the brave,

Vowed a vow to find and save

 

Darling Dilliki Dolliki Dinah

(niece you know to the empress of China;

Fair you know as a morning in May),

Whom Hy Kokolorum had stolen away.

 

Now in a kingly, ringly row,

Round and about the hill they go,

Ling the lofty, Bing the bland,

Kong and Bong, and there they stand,

 

Weaving a weird and spinning a spell,

All with intent to quash and quell

Hy Kokolorum, worker of woe,

Wicked as weasels and black as a crow.

 

Dilliki Dinah was weeping her fill,

When stepped up softly the panther Bill;

Whispered,” If you will give me a kiss,

I’ll turn your sorrow into bubbling bliss!”

 

She, to animals always kind,

Said,” No! Really? Well, I don’t mind!”

Dropped a kiss on his nose so pink,

And goodness gracious! what do you think?

 

He turned into a beautiful Golden King,

Crown and scepter and everything!

Ran the old wizard through and through,

Saying, ” Now there is an end of you!”

 

Caught the maiden up in his arms,

Broke through the net of spells and charms,

Cried to the barons Bold and Brave,

“I’ve had the honor to find and save

 

Darling Dilliki Dolliki Dinah

Niece (I learn) to the Empress of China,

Fair (I swear) as a morning in May

And she is my queen to this very day!”

 

Poem: If

 IF (only)

By Rudyard Kipling

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!

Habit 1: Lazy Jane

Lazy Jane

Lazy

lazy

lazy

lazy

lazy

lazy

Jane, 

she 

wants

a

drink

of

water

so

she

waits

and waits

and

waits

and

waits

and

waits

for

it

to

rain.

By Shel Silverstein

Poem: The Fox and the Crow

A coal-black crow sits in a tree, 
A morsel of cheese in his beak has he. 
A fox slinks by as sly as you please, 
And cunningly plots how to get the cheese. 
  
“Oh how I admire your feathers so spry, 
The sheen of your tail and the glint of your eye, 
The elegant curve of your beak sharp and long - 
But would I could hear your sweet voice raised in song!” 
  
At this the crow’s flattered and quite taken in; 
To impress the fox further he will now begin. 
He throws back his head, and rasping and raw, 
He utters a raucous, cacophonous “Caw!” 
  
With beak all agape, the cheese tumbles out, 
The fox snaps it up in his long pointed snout. 
“Sing, Crow, your vanity, long as you please. 
You keep your song, and I’ll have the cheese!”

  

By Paul King

(After the Aesop fable)

poem: Acorn and Oak

“Oh I’ll never be big,” the acorn said 
As it gazed on high to the oak tree tall, 
“I’m little and round as a miller’s thumb, 
I’ll never be big, I’ll always be small.” 
  
The oak tree smiled a knowing smile, 
“My trunk is thick, and my roots are deep, 
My branches and twigs spread high and wide, 
For birds to nest in, and bugs to sleep. 
  
But I was an acorn too on a time, 
- ‘Oh I’ll never be big, I’ll never be strong,’- 
That’s what I thought many years ago... 
 And, dear little acorn, you see I was wrong!”

Paul King

Poem: Avalanche

A thousand pines are sprawled
like broken toys,
snapped like toothpicks
by the crushing mass of snow
that pounded down
the steep mountain.
They tell me it was over
in minutes, a forest
that took a century to grow
gone in a roar,
an enormous thunder of snow.


by Kristine O'Connell George