If....a Library Lament by Dawn Finch (ish)

If...a Library Lament by Dawn Finch (ish)

If you can keep your smile when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can be wholly trusted while others doubted

    But make allowance for that doubting too;   

If you can give and give, and not be tired by giving, 

    Or handle being lied about, without dealing in lies, 

Or be ignored, yet never give way to ignoring, 

    Or look too smug, nor talk too wise: 

If you can offer dreams—but not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and make sharing knowledge your aim;   

If you can meet with savage cuts and disaster 

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth that you have spoken 

    Twisted by governments, the ignorant and fools, 

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 

    And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your dedication 

    And risk it on another year of grief, 

Yet keep on working hard against huge losses

    When friendly helper becomes employment thief; 

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

    To serve your users long after they are gone,   

And hold on when there is almost nothing left in you 

    Except the will which says to Them: ‘Hold on!’ 

If you can talk with all and keep your virtue,   

    With equality for all and the common touch, 

If you can take the endless cuts that slash you, 

    And keep on working for the place you love so much; 

If you can fill each unforgiving minute 

    With a smile and crushing down your closure fear,   

Yours is the library and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a library worker, my dear

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With absolutely no apologies to Kipling, and a day late for National Poetry Day - If, the Library Lament from Dawn Finch

Dawn is a children's writer and librarian and the current president of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) She is also a member of the CWIG committee and an active reading and library campaigner.

www.dawnfinch.com

@dawnafinch