IF...

by Rudyard Kipling

Dedicated to a dear Patriot Louie Laveist

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If you can keep your head and courage when about you

All are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

Yet make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied on, yet never deal in lies,

Or, being hated, yet never give way to hating,

And yet never 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 give 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 hearth 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 and not 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 minutes,

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 !