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 allowances 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 imposters

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 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 term 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 will be Man, my son!


[Home] [My World]

Stories: [On The Beach] [The Orphan]

Poems: [How I Wish] [The Colour of Life] [The Rose]

[Rudyard Kipling: If] [Jules Verne: The Complete Bibliography]

[Mr. Sherlock Holmes] [The Sherlock Holmes Quiz] [Prof. James Moriarty: Did He Really Exist!]

Hosting by WebRing.