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  • Home
  • Our Approach
    • Program Overview
    • Why Stories?
    • Implementation
    • The Morning Gathering
    • Suggested Book Lists >
      • Year One Suggested Book Lists
      • Year Two Suggested Book Lists
      • Year Three Suggested Booklists
      • PDF Book Lists
    • Digging Deeper
    • Telling our Stories >
      • Blog Archives >
        • 2018-2019
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  • About Us
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      • Mary Beth Klee
    • Core Virtues Schools
    • Our First Champion >
      • The Portsmouth Declaration
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  • Virtue of the Month
    • Virtue Cycle Definitions
    • Virtue Index
    • May
    • June
    • September
    • October
    • November
    • December
    • January
    • February
    • March
    • April
  • Cycle of Virtues
    • Year 1
    • Year 2
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  • Heroes-Lives to Learn From
    • May Heroes
    • June Heroes
    • September Heroes
    • October Heroes
    • November Heroes
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  • Holidays
    • Labor Day
    • Veteran's / Memorial Day
    • Thanksgiving
    • Hanukkah
    • Christmas
    • Martin Luther King Jr
    • Presidents' Day
    • Black History Month
    • Saint Patrick's Day
    • Women's History Month
    • Passover
    • Easter
    • Ramadan
    • Immigrant Heritage Month
  • Poetry
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It Couldn’t Be Done

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
      But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
      Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
      On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
      That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
 
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
      At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
      And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
      Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
      That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
 
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
      There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
      The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
      Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
      That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

By Edgar Albert Guest

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