If you can keep your head when all about you <br /> <br />Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, <br /> <br />If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you <br /> <br />But make allowance for their doubting too, <br /> <br />If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, <br /> <br />Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, <br /> <br />Or being hated, don't give way to hating, <br /> <br />And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: <br /> <br />If you can dream-and not make dreams your master, <br /> <br />If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim; <br /> <br />If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster <br /> <br />And treat those two impostors just the same; <br /> <br />If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken <br /> <br />Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, <br /> <br />Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, <br /> <br />And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: <br /> <br />If you can make one heap of all your winnings <br /> <br />And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, <br /> <br />And lose, and start again at your beginnings <br /> <br />And never breath a word about your loss; <br /> <br />If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew <br /> <br />To serve your turn long after they are gone, <br /> <br />And so hold on when there is nothing in you <br /> <br />Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on! ' <br /> <br />If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, <br /> <br />Or walk with kings-nor lose the common touch, <br /> <br />If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; <br /> <br />If all men count with you, but none too much, <br /> <br />If you can fill the unforgiving minute <br /> <br />With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, <br /> <br />Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, <br /> <br />And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!<br /><br />Kiran Ashtekar<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-by-rudyard-kipling/
