Help!! My son needs a graduation poem for the 6th grade! I can't find anything that doesn't talk about "jr. high" or about everyone going separate ways. He would love to find something on "success".

I appreciate you!

Either of these two any good?

Success by Berton Braley


If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it


If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it


If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,


If gladly you'll sweat for it,
Fret for it,
Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,


If you'll simply go after that thing that you want.
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,


If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,


If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You'll get it!


Published in: Things as they are, 1916

SUCCESS

To laugh often and love much;
To win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest citizens
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one's self;
To leave the world a bit better, whetherby a
healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm
and sung with exulatation;
To know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived -
This is to have suceeded.

--Emerson

NB the the origin of the above poem, attribution to Emerson, is disputed, other versions are attributed to Bessie Stanley (aka Mrs Arthur Stanley nee Anderson) and she is thought to have derived her version from a Robert Louis Stevenson quote. Maybe it's better not to quote the author.

It feels like we're getting out of college
Too bad we're only sixth graders
It's summer time and we're barbecuing sausage
That can keep this memory forever
My friend I ought to know that life is short
Of course that's why we spend every moment together
It's like a goal that we can score
Where we put our strength together
I need to know if you should know
That you are special to me
And I don't think that our relationship will go
If you walk beside me

Igleu, go here:

[www.google.com]


Les