Pablo Neruda's "My love, if you die and I don't"

My love, if you die and I don't,
let's not give grief an even greater field.
No expanse is greater than where we live.

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it..

Join us on Facebook 

Rudyard Kipling's 'If' which has eight-line stanzas of advice to his son. In 1909, he wrote this with Dr Leander Starr Jameson in mind. Jameson (In 1895) led about 500 of his countrymen in a failed raid against the Boers, in southern Africa. What became known as the Jameson Raid was later cited as a major factor in bringing about the Boer War of 1899 to 1902.  But the story as recounted in Britain was quite different. The British defeat was interpreted as a victory and Jameson portrayed as a daring hero.