IF

If you think your life is important

Wait till you die,
You’ll be as the skin on a day old dung
In the haggard, by and by.
 
If you deem that your dreams are prophetic
Pause till you wake,
They will listen, pretend to be impressed,
For your sake.
 
If you count your contributions to this world
One by one,
They may be as dust mites in myriads of stars
Of the sun.
 
If you think you’ve known faith, hope or love
As it might be,
It’s likely that a tiny grain of sand knows more
About the sea.
 
If you believe in Heaven up above, the promise
Of salvation,
You’re no different from the multitudes of sheep
Of every nation.
 
 
(With all due deference to Kipling)
 
Strange; in 1865 Kipling was born in India and Yeats was born in Ireland, two British Colonies. When Kipling won the Nobel Prize in 1907 he was decreed to be British but no such claim was made on Yeats in 1923 when he won the coveted prize.

If the man-in-the moon wins the Nobel Prize for Literature will he be pigeon-holed with Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway as many believe the Moon to be an American colony?