Rudyard Kipling, #1

This - the poetry of Rudyard Kipling - was a bit of a surprise. As a kid I have read (in Russian translation) "The Jungle Book" and other Mowgli stories, the "Just So Stories", etc. So, I was firmly under impression that he only wrote prose and Kipling's poetry became a small, but very pleasant discovery for me.


I can't quite pinpoint why I like Kipling's poetry (for me, a non-native speaker, it is often hard to appreciate English poetry), but I do. Here's one of my favorites:

                         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 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 stoop and build 'em up with wornout 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 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!