Never Give Up
POETRY FORMAT, 29 Aug 2016
Dag Hammarskjold – TRANSCEND Media Service
Tired
And lonely, So tired
The heart aches.
Meltwater trickles
Down the rocks,
The fingers are numb,
The knees tremble.
It is now,
Now, that you must not give in.
On the path of the others
Are resting places,
Places in the sun
Where they can meet.
But this
Is your path,
And it is now,
Now, that you must not fail.
Weep
If you can,
Weep,
But do not complain.
The way chose you–
And you must be thankful.
_______________________________________
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was the second United Nations Secretary-General, from April 1953 to September 1961, when he died in a plane crash while on a peace mission in the Congo. He was born on 29 July 1905 in Jonkoping in south-central Sweden. The fourth son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden during World War I, he was brought up in the university town of Uppsala where his father was Governor of the county of Uppland. http://www.aquaac.org/un/sprtatun.html
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 29 Aug 2016.
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Fine poem!
As I was becoming more aware of the world, in my early teens, I was inspired by Dag Hammarskjold work–his vision and humanism. I grieved when I heard of his death, but there was no one with whom I could share my sorrow. Even back then, our “news” media gave scant attention to the visionaries and idealists and dirt-on-their-hands, sweat-on-their-brows workers among us!
In this poem, Hammarskjold acknowledges his very human feelings of weariness of the hard work he feels “called upon” to complete. Others may find rest and solace along their chosen paths (and along the paths that “chose” them!), but that is not his “way,” and he urges his spirit onward, with gratitude because he has a “way,” and a “now” in which to bring it to fruition.