Explore "IF" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Twixt what thou art, and what thou wouldst be, let / No "If" arise on which to lay the blame. / Man makes a mountain of that puny word, / But, like a blade of grass before the scythe, / It falls and withers when a human will, / Stirred by creative force, sweeps toward its aim.
Thou wilt be what thou couldst be. Circumstance / Is but the toy of genius. When a soul / Burns with a god-like purpose to achieve, / All obstacles between it and its goal / Must vanish as the dew before the sun.
"If" is the motto of the dilettante / And idle dreamer; 'tis the poor excuse / Of mediocrity. The truly great / Know not the word, or know it but to scorn, / Else had Joan of Arc a peasant died, / Uncrowned by glory and by men unsung.