IF

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 man doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting

Or being lied don’t deal it 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 impostors just the same

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trip 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 stays to thee: ‘Hol 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 60 seconds’worth of distance’ then,

Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,

And which is more- youll be a Man, my son

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