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!