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Rudyard Kipling: Poetry Foundation Browse: Poems Poets

This poem discusses virtues like maintaining composure when others doubt you, not retaliating against hatred with more hatred, and persevering through both triumph and disaster. The poem says if you possess these virtues, you will be a true man and the world will be yours.

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106 views4 pages

Rudyard Kipling: Poetry Foundation Browse: Poems Poets

This poem discusses virtues like maintaining composure when others doubt you, not retaliating against hatred with more hatred, and persevering through both triumph and disaster. The poem says if you possess these virtues, you will be a true man and the world will be yours.

Uploaded by

Rizakais
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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☰
If—
BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)


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!
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)

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P OE T
Rudyard Kipling
P OE T ’S R E GIO N
England
S C HOO L / PE R IO D
Victorian
S UBJ E C T S
Religion, Living, Faith & Doubt, Coming of Age
OC C AS IO NS
Graduation, Farewells & Good Luck
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Poems by Rudyard Kipling

"For All We Have And Are"


"The Trade"
"Tin Fish"
A Death-Bed

A Pict Song
Danny Deever
Epitaphs of the War
Gethsemane
Gunga Din

Harp Song of the Dane Women

Justice
Justice
Mesopotamia
Recessional
Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
Song of the Galley-Slaves

The Bell Buoy


The Benefactors
The Children
The City of Sleep
The Long Trail

The Secret of the Machines


The Song of the Banjo
The Verdicts

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Poem Categorization

S UBJ E C T
Religion, Living, Faith & Doubt, Coming of Age
P OE T ’S R E GIO N
England
S C HOO L / PE R IO D
Victorian
P OE T IC T ER M S
Rhymed Stanza
If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.

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