World Cup: Some Said It Couldn’t Be Done

U.S. vs. Belgium in World Cup

Sports Saturday

As a fan of the American soccer team, I am, like many, very proud of the effort they put forth in the Round of 16. Belgium was clearly the better team, running circles around us for much of the match, so it was probably right that they prevailed in the end. Still, I loved how we never hesitated to attack when we could and how we almost overcame a two-goal deficit at the end.

I found myself applying a whole series of clichés to the team, sounding a bit like an Edgar Guest poem as I did so. I said that we were gritty and determined, that we demonstrated our “never say die” spirit and refused to give up against even impossible odds. My language sounded utterly hackneyed.

Guest was one of America’s most popular poets in the early part of the 20^th century, publishing over 11,000 poems in 300 newspapers and other venues including, eventually, The Reader’s Digest. Most famous for his poem “Home” (“It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home”), Guest captured a certain strain of can-do American optimism in pithy doggerel.

The poem that came to mind as I watched America emerge from “the Group of Death” and hold its own against Belgium was “It Couldn’t Be Done.” “Quiddit,” incidentally, is an obsolete word meaning equivocating:

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. 

Yes, I know it’s pretty awful. In fact, those who romanticize the days when poetry was much more a part of everyday life need also to remember that this was the kind of poetry that people often turned to. It has been argued, with some justification, that the major reason to read Guest is so that one can appreciate Dorothy Parker’s succinct putdown. Referring to a medical procedure used to detect syphilis, Parker wrote,

I’d rather flunk my Wasserman test
Than read the poetry of Edgar Guest.

If one knows Guest, one can also better appreciate a parody of “It Couldn’t Be Done,” which unfortunately more accurately describes what happened to the U.S. soccer team:

Somebody Said That It Couldn’t Be Done

Anonymous

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done– 
But he, with a grin, replied, 
He’d never be one to say it couldn’t be done– 
Leastways, not ’til he’d tried. 
So he buckled right in, with a trace of a grin, 
By golly, he went right to it! 
He tackled The Thing That Couldn’t Be Done! 
And couldn’t do it.

Oh well, just wait until 2018.