Poetry for Steadiness

by Edgar Albert Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

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 in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Read through a Stoic lens, this poem centers on acting in the face of others’ certainty. (Though that clarity comes more from the reading than from the poem itself.) What’s presented as impossible is often nothing more than assumption, repeated often enough to sound like fact. The refusal here isn’t defiance for its own sake; it’s a refusal to let external judgment determine action.

The focus stays on doing; not proving others wrong, not arguing, not persuading — just proceeding. The work either gets done or it doesn’t; what others think about it is beside the point.