If you can keep your head when all about you
Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowances for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired of 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 imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truths you’ve spoken
Twisted knives 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 you 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 crows and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor loose the common touch,
If neither foe 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.
