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, 23:59, March 14, 2024
"'''If---'''" is perhaps the most famous [[poem]] in the [[English]] language, as written by [[Rudyard Kipling]] and published as part of his book ''Rewards and Fairies'' (1910, 338 pages, [[public domain]] today):<ref>https://www.gutenberg.org/files/556/556-h/556-h.htm#link2H_4_0023</ref>
: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!
== References ==
{{reflist}}
[[category:poetry]]