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 it in with a bit of a grin,Just takeoff your coat and go to it;Just start to sing as you tackle the thingThat cannot be done and you’ll do it.Edgar Guest (1881-1959) was an English immigrant who arrived in
Detroit in 1891. He began supporting his family as a newspaper copy boy and went onto become a career newspaperman and radio personality who wrote more than 20 volumes of poetry. At his death, he was mourned as
“the poet of the people because he wrote popular sentimental poems about everyday family life and values. He composed some 11,000 poems during his career. (The word “quiddit” inverse, line 6, is actually “quiddity” and means “quibbling.”)
A Hill nephew came across It Couldn’t
Be Done checked in pencil,
in a book titled
It Can Be Done Poems of Motivation and Inspiration—
more than 50 years after the book had been given to Annie Lou Hill, in, by her sister Mary.
