If …for Girls…by J.P. McEvoy

As heard on the Good Stuff with Jim Thompson

If you can hear the whispering about you

And never yield to deal in whispers too

If you can bravely smile when loved ones doubt you

And never doubt, in turn, what loves ones do

If you can keep a sweet and gentle spirit

In spite of fame or fortune, rank or place

And though you win your goal or only near it

Can win with poise or lose with equal grace

If you can meet with unbelief, believing

And hallow in your heart a simple creed

If you can meet deception, undeceiving

And learn to look to God for all you need

If you can be what girls should be to mothers

Chums in joy and comrades in distress

And be unto others as you’d  have the others

Be unto you…no more, and yet no less

If you can keep within your heart the power

To say that firm unconquerable NO

If you can brave a present shadowed hour

Rather than yield to build a future woe

If you can love, yet not let loving master

But keep yourself within your owns self’s clasp

And not let dreaming lead you to disaster

Nor pity’s fascination loose your grasp

If you can lock your heart on confidences

Nor ever needlessly in turn confide

If you can put behind you all pretenses

Of mock humility or foolish pride

If you can keep the simple, homely virtue

Of walking right with God, then have no fear

That anything in all the world can hurt you

And- which is more-, you’ll be a woman dear