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
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 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 |
Classic Poems |
|
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