The Hub

If you think you are beaten, you are; If you think you dare not, you don't. If you'd like to win, but you think you can't, It is almost a cinch- you won't. If you think you'll lose, you've lost; For out in this world we find Success begins with a fellow's will It's all in the state of mind. If you think you're outclassed, you are; You've got to think high to rise. You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win the prize. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man; But sooner or later the man who wins Is the one who thinks he can!

There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

About the poet:  Kahlil Gibran was the key figure in a Romantic movement that transformed Arabic literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Educated in Beirut, Boston, and Paris, Gibran was influenced by the European modernists of the late nineteenth century. His early works were sketches, short stories, poems, and prose poems written in simple language for Arabic newspapers in the United States. These pieces spoke to the experiences and loneliness of Middle Eastern immigrants in the New World. More at this website at Poetry.com:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kahlil-gibran Now, Thus goes the poem: In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, “Master, I am thy slave.  Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for ever more.”   But God made no answer, and like a mighty tempest passed away.   And after a thousand years I ascended the holy mountai...

O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know. Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost— For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

                                     John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25.(Wiki) Link:  http://www.online-literature.com/keats/ Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. - Ode to a Grecian Urn                                                                 ...Keats Now, the poem: Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,     Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;  Conspiring  with him ...