If ... Rudyard Kipling

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 make thought 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 truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stop 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 the pitch - and - toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breat a word about your loss;

If you can force heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they have 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 you 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,

Your is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more -

you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Derleyen, Ayhan Görür