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
Real men, the newest minority.
Inspiring words.
As it will be in the future, and it was at the birth of Man,
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Fool repeats his folly and the Sinnner returns to his Mire,
And the Saphead’s bandaged finger goes pokling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins,
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of Age-old Wisdom with terror and slaughter return!
– from “The Gods of The Copybook Headings”
I used to teach that poem to seventh graders. Oddly enough, It was in their literature book. Along with “Rikki-tiki -tavo” from Jungle Book, the kids learned to appreciate Kipling, even if they did come to school from the barrio and ghetto. Why I miss teaching some days.
-tavi not tavo. Gggrrrrr.