It Can Be Done

These poems are about real life. They will make you smile, square your jaw, lighten your load, heighten your step, and grow rebar in your spine. They will lift you up, make you soar, and give you a view of the smallness of your problems. They will help you think bigger, feel better, laugh harder, and eat your problems for breakfast.

My first exposure to these poems came when I arrived home one day and was met by my wife Deborah at the door. With book in hand, she began to read poems with the express purpose of inspiring me. The first poem she read was, It Couldn’t Be Done. I was hooked.

The book was originally published in 1921 and contained 239 poems. I have cut these down to my favorites - the ones that my wife read to me in her quest to be a good helper of her husband by inspiring him that, It Can Be Done!

This is a book for the rescue of 21st century manhood and womanhood. The world needs real men and women today.

Our world is sick with feminized, soft, mollycoddling, sensitive males who are always looking for permission and affirmation and certification to do anything. These male maladies are ripping our culture apart. The average male today never grows up and rarely leads. He is an emotional basket case, constantly jerked around by his feelings – not governed by eternal principles. He is worried about his hair, spends his life playing games and has a therapist. The result is, he settles for “whatever.”

Our world needs real women as well. It is reeling under the influence of dizzy, ditzy women whose vision is centered around themselves. It is languishing at the hands of women whose energy and joy have dissolved under the pressures of life. Instead, we need strong women who refuse to be unraveled or frightened by any fear. The world is crying out for resolute, visionary women who are able to rise above their disappointments to see the goal. They sacrifice their lives for their children and follow their men to the ends of the earth.

It Can Be Done!  by those who look hardship in the face, ready themselves for sacrifice, and engage themselves in dominion.

117 pages.

Table of Contents

Includes:

1. It Couldn’t Be Done - Edger A. Guest
2. Be the Best of Whatever You Are - Douglas Malloch 
3. See It Through - Edger A. Guest
4. When God Wants a Man - Angela Morgan
5. Victory - Miriam Teichner
6.  Keep on Keepin’ On - Anonymous
7.  The Welcome Man - Walt Mason
8.  Wanted, A Man - St. Clair Adams
9.  Work - Angela Morgan
10.  How Did You Die? - Edmund Vance Cooke
11.  A Lesson From History - Joseph Morris
12.  Worth While - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
13.  Hope - Anonymous
14.  Might have Been - Grantland Rice
15.  There Will Always Be Something to Do - Edgar A. Guest
16.  How do You Tackle Your Work? - Edgar A. Guest
17.  Opportunity - Walter Malone 
18.  Opportunity - Edward Rowland Sill
19.  Preparedness - Edwin Markham
20.  Life and Death - Ernest H. Crosby
21.  The Things that Haven’t Been Done Before - Edgar A. Guest
22.  Can’t - Edgar A. Guest
23.  The Firm of Grin and Barrett - Sam Walter Foss
24.  Unafraid - Everard Jack Appleton
25.  The Trainers - Grantland Rice
26.  Battle Cry - John G. Neihardt
27.  If You Can’t go Over or Under, Go Around - Joseph Morris
28.  A Prayer - Theodosia Garrison
29.  The Man Who Frets at Worldly Strife - Joseph Rodman Drake
30.  Heinelet - Gamaliel Bradford
31.  On Down the Road - Grantland Rice
32.  Co-Operation - J. Mason Knox
33.  Four Things - Henry Van Dyke
34.  If - Rudyard Kipling
35.  The Lion Path - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
36.  Good Intentions - St. Clair Adams
37.  The Fighting Failure - Everard Jack Appleton
38.  My Philosophy - James Whitcomb Riley
39.  Work - Henry Van Dyke
40.  Wishing - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
41.  To the Men Who Lose - Anonymous
42.  Your Mission - Ellen M. H. Gates
43.  Borrowed Feathers - Joseph Morris
44.  A Poor Unfortunate - Frank L. Stanton
45.  Clear the Way - Charles Mackay
46.  Thick Is the Darkness - William Ernest Henley
47.  Cleon and I - Charles Mackay
48.  Meetin’ Trouble - Everard Jack Appleton
49.  My Creed - S. E. Kiser
50.  Borrowing Trouble - Robert Burns
51.  Character of a Happy Life - Sir Henery Wotton
52.  Slogan - Jane M’Lean
53.  Smiles - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
54.  Keep A-goin’! - Frank L. Stanton
55.  The House by the Side of the Road - Sam Walter Foss