Poetry for the Soul

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 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, broke,

          And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tool:

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!

1865 - 1936