Rudyard Kipling's 'IF...'

I present here a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The poem 'IF...' is one of my all time favourites.

IF…

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!


It is an inspiring and motivating poem. It lays out before us a certain number of principles that we should follow to lead a meaningful life. The phrase in the last line of the poem: “…you'll be a Man, my son!”, sums the essence of human life. Man has made so much progress in the modern mechanical and materialistic world, science has helped to reinvent lives, man has reached the moon (to name only a few changes brought about by science) but the quality of life has gone down. All kinds of things have possible but the most shocking thing has been that man has not been a ‘man’ all the while. He has developed beastly qualities. Man is supposed to be highest of the category of animals. But he has stooped very low at times.
We have forgotten to trust ourselves. We are suppressed when others doubt us, we don’t have the courage to announce the truth to the world, rather we bury it deep under our uneasy silence at the slightest hint of protest by the outside world.
Tolerance is a concept of the bygone world. The word doesn’t exist in our dictionary anymore.
How brilliantly the poet has presented his thoughts. He sums the true meaning of being a human being in the following lines:

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!


Kipling wrote this poem with Dr Leander Starr Jameson at the back of his mind. Jameson carried out a raid against the Boers but the raid failed badly. The raid was an immature one. Jameson was captured very soon and he was imprisoned for fifteen months. But what happened when he returned to London was that he was considered as a hero in Britain. The defeat of the British was considered a victory.