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!
Rudyard Kipling