Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.
— Ronald Reagan, excerpt from his poem “Life”
Ronald Reagan: Poems He Wrote and Poets He Loved
We know a variety of things about Ronald Reagan: how he became a sports broadcaster after a colorful
audition, how he acted in over 50 films, how he led the Screen Actors Guild through perilous times, how
he could recall and recount funny stories, and how his leadership both as Governor and President will
never be forgotten.
But do you know he loved poetry and…he wrote it?
The depth of Ronald Reagan’s talent never ceases to amaze us. We’ve been moved by his speeches,
inspired by addresses from the Oval Office, touched by his nimble wit and joyful heart. We been
entertained by his “doodles” and enchanted by the dear missives he penned to his beloved wife.
Yet, in another lyrical form of expression, he wrote poetry and loved the work of many other poets.
The First Stanza…
Let’s start at the beginning which means we’ll start with Mom. Nelle Reagan was described by her son as
“the dean of dramatic recitals… who poured out poetry by the yard.” A woman of hope, faith, and
charity, Mrs. Reagan was likely the individual who gave her young son, Dutch, his first opportunity to
hear what was to become his favorite poem, written by Rudyard Kipling in 1895, “If.”
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too…
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
To read the rest of the poem, click here:
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
She also wrote poetry, which shines from inside her Bible:
A SONNET – BY NELLIE REAGAN
When I consider how my life is spent
The most that I can do will be to prove
‘Tis by His side, each day, I seek to move.
To higher, nobler things my mind is bent
Thus giving of my strength, which God has lent,I strive some needy souls unrest, to soothe
Lest they the paths of righteousness shall lose
Through fault of mine, my Maker to present.
If I should fail to short them of their need
How could I hope to meet Him face to face.
Or give a just account of all my ways
In thought of mind, in word, and in each deed,
My life must prove the power of His grace
By every action through my living days.
Reagan’s Favorites…
Encouraged to overcome his shyness, young Dutch Reagan stepped in front of an audience in his first
public performance at nine years old and recited a piece entitled "About Mother," before the Tampico,
Illinois Church of Christ congregation in early May, 1920. While fulfilling his curiosity about poetry and
escaping the heat on long summer days, he devoured the writings of Robert Service. His favorite? “The
Shooting of Dan McGrew” which he cited when he met Pope John Paul II in May 1984. When greeting
the pontiff in Fairbanks, Alaska he said, “Every time I come to Alaska I think of Robert Service and I
always threaten to recite ``The Shooting of Dan McGrew'.' But as you can see, it’s easy to understand
why the president, despite his Alaska location, chose to refrain.
THE SHOOTING OF DAN MCGREW
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
To read the rest of the poem, click here:
However, the words of Robert Service were useful to the President when he searched for the right
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
approach to encourage his colleagues. The poem used? The Quitter. On January 20, 1983 he said, “…let
me thank you all again and encourage you for the days ahead. Don't be swayed by Washington's
whining voices and crying-towels. I know it's true that sometimes you don't get a fair shake, but if you
get discouraged, I want you to remember some words a poet I've always admired once penned. His
name was Robert Service and he wrote:
``. . . You've had a raw deal! I know -- but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.''
He continued, “And, for an encore, I could do ``The Shooting of Dan McGrew,'' but I don't think it would
be appropriate. So remember, with those words of Mr. Service, we inherited a mess, and we didn't run
away from it. And now we're turning it around. Together, we'll build a far better future for America -- a
future of growth, opportunity, and security, anchored by the values of a people who are confident,
compassionate, and whose heart is good.”
If you’d like to read the complete Robert Service poem, click here:
Reagan published…
It’s no surprise that Ronald Reagan appears in his high school yearbook as an athlete and an actor, but
he also makes his debut as poet. He mused about “Life,” and penned his thoughts now immortalized in
“The Dixonian, ”1928, when he was 17 years old.
LIFE
I wonder what it’s all about, and why
We suffer so, when little things go wrong?
We make our life a struggle,
When life should be a song.
Our troubles break and drench us,
Like spray on the cleaving prow
Of some trim Gloucester schooner,
As it dips in a graceful bow.
Our troubles break and drench us.
But like that cleaving prow
The wind will fan and dry us,
And we’ll watch some other bow.
But why does sorrow drench us
When our fellow passes on?
He's just exchanged life's dreary dirge
For an eternal life of song.
What is the inborn human trait
That growns on a life of song?
That makes us week at the journey’s end,
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
When the journey was oft-times wrong?
Weep when we reach the door
That opens to let us in,
And brings to us eternal peace
As it closes again on sin.
Millions have gone before us,
And millions will come behind.
So why do we curse and fight
At a fate both wise and kind.
We hang onto a jaded life
A life full of sorry and pain.
A life that warps and breaks us,
And we try to run through it again.
~RR, ‘28
The Governor Pens a Couple of Poems…
Not long before leaving Sacramento, Governor Reagan along with 11 other political figures, responded
to a request for original poetry by Literary Cavalcade, a magazine for high school students. He
submitted two poems, one of which was printed again in 1982 in Tendril, a poetry magazine. His second
poem, “State Budget” separates the “bureau” from the “crat.” See for yourself.
TIME
Budgets
Battles
Phone calls
Hassles.
Letters
Meetings
Luncheons
Speeches.
Politics and
Press Releases.
New conferences
Delegations
Plaques and
Presentations.
Travels
Briefings
Confrontations
Crises
Routines
Meditation.
Eight years pass swiftly.
But I look out the window.
The elm in the park looks just the same.
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
STATE BUDGET
A surplus? I said.
A surplus! He said.
The State has a surplus.
Not a deficit – A surplus, instead.
Unheard of? I said.
Unheard of! He said.
It’s almost unheard of – and each legislator
Will soon have
It spent in his head.
No!
Let’s give it back! I said.
Give it back? He said.
But you can’t do that.
They’ll send you a bill
To create a new bureau.
Just like that!
I’ll sign it! I said.
I’ll sign it, then blue-line it.
And with no money,
What good’s the bureau
Without the crat?
Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth…
Throughout his writing and speeches, President Reagan achieved clarity by quoting a line or two from
one of his favorite poets. One of the most well known occasions is from a dark moment in 1986 when
the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded within seconds after launching. To respectfully honor the fallen
astronauts, President Reagan relied on the words of John Gillespie Magee, Jr., also a teenage poet who
wrote "High Flight." Magee joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was sent to England for combat
duty in July 1941; tragically, he died in his Spitfire on December 11, 1941 at the age of 19. "High Flight"
was written on the back of a letter to his parents when he said, "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other
day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed." After Magee's death, the sonnet
came to the attention of the Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, who included it in an exhibition
of poems called "Faith and Freedom" in February 1942. It is believed Ronald Reagan first heard the
poem in the 40’s when fellow actor Tyrone Power recited "High Flight" from memory at a party after his
return from fighting in World War II.
The day of the Challenger Space Shuttle tragedy, Reagan concluded his national address with Magee’s
words: “We shall never forget them nor the last time we saw them, as they prepared for their mission,
waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.”
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Not long before the launch, President Reagan saluted the teaching profession, specifically teacher
Christa McAuliffe. He quoted one of his favorite poems by Clark Mollenhoff, a former Pulitzer Prize
winning reporter with the Des Moines Register, entitled,
TEACHER
``You are the molders of their dreams –
the gods who build or crush their young beliefs in right or wrong.
You are the spark that sets aflame a poet's hand,
or lights the flame in some great singer's song.
You are the gods of the young -- the very young.
You are their idols by profession set apart.
You are the guardians of a million dreams.
Your every smile or frown can heal or pierce a heart.
Yours are one hundred lives -- one thousand lives.
Yours is the pride of loving them, the sorrow too.
Your patient work, your touch, make you the god of hope
that fills their souls with dreams and makes those dreams come true.''
In Moscow…
In 1988, when Ronald Reagan traveled to Moscow in order to ratify the INF Treaty, he made it a priority
to meet with local artists and cultural leaders. “It is the poet’s privilege,” he told them by quoting William
Faulkner, “to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope
and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glories of our past. The poet’s
voice need not merely be the record of man. It can be one of the props, the pillars, to help him endure
and prevail.”
The President and Poetry…
Throughout his presidency, Ronald Reagan incorporated poetic phrases into his speeches. To
understand how well he perfected this technique, here is a small selection:
William Cullen Bryant - April 9, 1981
“Commander John W. Young and Captain Robert L. Crippen, you go forward this morning in a daring
enterprise, and you take the hopes and prayers of all Americans with you. You go in the hand of God and
draw on the courage of life.
Our countryman and poet William Cullen Bryant said America is where mankind throws its last fetters.
With your exploits, we loosen one more. Who, he said, shall place a limit to the giant's strength, or curb
his swiftness in the forward race?
Through you, today, we all feel as giants once again. Once again we feel the surge of pride that comes
from knowing we are the best, and we are so because we are free.”
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
Robert Browning - June 7, 1982
“It's a genuine privilege to be here today and, most especially, as the guest of President Pertini. The poet
Robert Browning wrote, ``Open my heart and you will see 'graved inside of it Italy.''
As countless immigrants to my nation's shores would confirm, Italy is engraved inside millions of
American hearts. And, Mr. President, after your recent trip to the United States, the name Pertini also is
engraved in our hearts.”
Yeats - August 15, 1983
Whenever I meet with the members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, I remember what the poet Yeats
said: ``Think where man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.'' It's
great to be among you once again.
John Greanleaf Whittier - November 2, 1983
When I was thinking of the contributions to our country of the man that we're honoring today, a passage
attributed to the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier comes to mind. ``Each crisis brings its word and
deed.'' In America, in the fifties and sixties, one of the important crises we faced was racial
discrimination. The man whose words and deeds in that crisis stirred our nation to the very depths of its
soul was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tennyson – December 17, 1985
“From the time the first human being glimpsed the first bird, the dream of flight has captivated the
human imagination. The great Leonardo da Vinci sketched elaborate designs for flying machines, and
the poet Tennyson had a vision of the heavens filled with commerce and ``argosies of magic sails.''
Walt Whitman - August 9, 1988
“This occasion is a special pleasure for me every year. As I look at the names of the 12 people we honor
today, I think of the words of the poet Walt Whitman: ``I hear America singing.'' The voice within -- heard
-- is the same voice that all great artists can hear. It's the voice that inspires them, the voice that inspires
great American art. But America does not sing in one voice. No, she sings in many voices, a thousand
different songs in a thousand different keys.”
Poetry for the Last Farewell
Patti Davis tells how her father decided to write down his reflections about death. He chose to write
down the first verse of an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem, "Crossing the Bar," and then he decided to add a
couple lines of his own. He noted, “I don't think Tennyson will mind.”
Tennyson wrote:
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
President Reagan added:
We have God's promise
that I have gone on to a better world,
where there is no pain or sorrow.
Bring comfort to those who may mourn my going.
© 2012 The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. All Rights Reserved.