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 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 up with wornout 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 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 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
