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9.3
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(376
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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
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Read poems about / on: loss, trust, son, truth, dream, lost, hate, running, friend
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Comments about this poem (If
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Rudyard Kipling
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Sara S
(6/20/2009 10:43:00 AM) |
Forget all the political and junk, still a great poem!
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Tim Green
(6/10/2009 7:33:00 AM) |
Patryk Krzywon, strange that you should mention Orwell, who, though disagreeing violently with Kipling politically, is full of praise for his work, 'vulgar' though he describes it - ironically so, in my view, since Orwell is so critical of Kipling's prejudices, yet fails to discern his own intellectual snobbery in the use of such a term. To paraphrase Orwell, his work contains transcendent truth which, once heard, worms itself forever into the hearers consciousness, like it or not. He describes him as a 'good bad poet'. To me, that sounds like high praise indeed, especially since his definition of 'good' poetry seems to exclude anything that could be appreciated by the uninitiated.
It also causes one to wonder why we should care what Orwell thought, anyway? Should I read literary criticism of a piece of work and check whether its author's weltanschauung is aligned to my own before deciding whether I like it?
Your first sentence is equally intriguing. Should we assume that a Victorian English imperialist is a creature so utterly beyond redemption that his utterances can automatically be dismissed?
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nothing over
(4/27/2009 11:11:00 PM) |
Great poem, check out my poems too
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Patryk Krzywon
(3/28/2009 8:39:00 PM) |
you do realise he's an English reporter/poet/writer from the late 19th/early 20th century, right? And I can imagine Orwell turning in his grave as you speak of how great a poet Kipling was ^^
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Marc O'Maolain
(3/23/2009 3:03:00 PM) |
Wow, Rudyard, you kick butt! You sound kinda like one of those English poets from the 19th century or something.
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Milica Franchi
(3/10/2009 11:28:00 PM) |
Where has this poem been all of my life.I read it and I cried.It was like someone turned on the light and I can now see, where before I was in darkness.From now on I will treasure it and refer to it when in strife because of the live's imperfections.
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Veruschka Eiman
(2/17/2009 8:16:00 AM) |
I like Rudyard's poems, it has something in it that just attracts me to read it, and he's poems has such meaningful sense in a special way
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Sasidharan Vellat Menon
(12/31/2008 7:44:00 PM) |
I first got to read the poem from the road side in a single sheet and it touched my heart there and then. I even did it enlarged and pasted to my room wall to see it on every day.
it is a must read poem, simple and convey many good things to us. -
- Sasidharan Vellat
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