What would you have me do? Search out some powerful patronage, and be Like crawling ivy clinging to a tree? No thank you. Dedicate, like all the others, Verses to plutocrats, while caution smothers Whatever might offend my lord and master? No thank you. Kneel until my knee-caps fester, Bend my back until I crack my spine, And scratch another’s back if he’ll scratch mine? No thank you. Dining out to curry favour, Meeting the influential till I slaver, Suiting my style to what the critics want With slavish copy of the latest can’t? No thanks! Ready to jump through any hoop To be the great man of a little group? Be blown off course, with madrigals for sails, By the old women sighing through their veils? Labouring to write a line of such good breeding Its only fault is that it’s not worth reading? To ingratiate myself, abject with fear, And fawn and flatter to avoid a sneer? No thanks, no thanks, no thanks! But just to sing, Dream, laugh, and take my tilt of wing, To cock a snook whenever I shall choose, To fight for yes and no, come win or lose, To travel without thought of fame or fortune Wherever I care to go to under the moon! Never to write a line that hasn’t come Directly from my heart: and so, with some Modesty, to tell myself: My boy, Be satisfied with a flower, a fruit, the joy Of a single leaf, so long as it was grown In your own garden. Then, if success is won By any chance, you have nothing to render to A hollow Caesar: the merit belongs to you. In short, I won’t be a parasite; I’ll be My own intention, stand alone and free, And suit my voice to what my own eyes see!
|
Dedicate some of your life to others. Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end.
|
Everybody wants to play well on Saturday afternoon in front of 80,000 and on national television. But when you're in the hot summer sun and when you've got a chance to eat four pizzas and you don't go, that was the thing that made an indication this guy's really going to dedicate himself.
|
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
|
I don't want it to be something that you couldn't offer to his memory. You couldn't have that for Jimmy Johnstone. I'd want to dedicate something of beauty and not a horrendous performance.
|
True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
|
We look at adoption as a very sacred exchange. It was not done lightly on either side. I would dedicate my life to this child.
|
My non-violence bids me dedicate myself to the service of the minorities.
|
Do not worry about the consequence; leave it to God who prompted the act and made it possible. Dedicate the act, the will and the wish, all to God.
|