Monday, January 21, 2013

"If" By Rudyard Kipling

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 loo 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 spoke
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 all on one turn of
   pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at
   your beginnings
And never breath 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 the 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!