If—
Rudyard Kipling
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and
Fairies)
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!
Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)
Dad read this to me when I was little. I remember it, it had touched him as a child. My Grandfather Lanham had lots of poetry in his mind even when he remembered little.
I think we need a daughter version. I will work on that, Sorry Mr. Kipling.
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