-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
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!