If
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 too wise;
If you can
dream- and not make dreams your master;
If you can
think- and not make thoughts your aims;
If you can
meet with Triump and Disaster
And treat
these 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 then: “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
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