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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 all on one turn
of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never
breath 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!
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