| 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:
|
| If you can dream―and
not make dreams your master; |
| If you can think―and
not make thoughts your aim; |
| If you can meet with Triumph and
Disaster |
| And treat those two
impostors just the same; |
| If you can bear to hear the truth
you’ve spoken |
| Twisted by knaves to make
a trap for fools, |
| Or watch the things you gave your life
to, broken, |
And stoop and build ’em up
with worn-out tools:
|
| If you can make one heap of all your
winnings |
| And risk it on one turn of
pitch-and-toss, |
| And lose, and start again at your
beginnings |
| And never breathe a word
about your loss; |
| If you can force your heart and nerve
and sinew |
| To serve your turn long
after they are gone, |
| And so hold on when there is nothing in
you |
Except the Will which says to them:
‘Hold on!’
|
| If you can talk with crowds and keep
your virtue, |
| Or walk with Kings―nor
lose the common touch, |
| If neither foes nor loving friends can
hurt you, |
| If all men count with you,
but none too much; |
| If you can fill the unforgiving minute |
| With sixty seconds’ worth
of distance run, |
| Yours is the Earth and everything
that’s in it, |
And―which
is more―you’ll be a Man, my son!
|
| Rudyard
Kipling |
Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ If ] [ The Way Through the Woods ] [ Danny Deever ] [ Recessional ] [ Tommy ] [ The White Man's Burden ] [ Chant-Pagan ] [ The Deep Sea Cables ] [ The Dykes ] [ Gunga Din ] [ The Gods of the Copybook Headings ] [ Fuzzy-Wuzzy ] [ The Land ] [ The Old Men ] [ My Rival ] |
