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 lied about, don’t
deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t
give way to hating,
And yet don’t
look too good, not talk too wise.
If you can dream –
and not make dreams your master;
If you can think –
and not make the 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 stop 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 walk 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.
