RUDYARD KIPLING'S "IF-"

2014-31 Rudyard Kipling's If---

Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]

Joseph Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]: In 1896, thirty-one-year-old Rudyard Kipling was an internationally-renowned poet and story-teller when he wrote a poem with a one-word title: "If."  

The poem was inspired by "The Jameson Raid," an 1895 military action in the Boer War in South Africa. Kipling's poem was not published until 1910, when it appeared in Rewards and Fairies, a collection of short stories and verse. 

Almost overnight, the poem was hailed as a magnificent tribute to many of humankind's greatest virtues—staying composed under stress, remaining humble when victorious, never despairing when defeated, and always retaining honor and authenticity.


The well-known Indian historian and writer Khushwant Singh claims that Kipling's If is "the essence of the message of The Bhagavad Gita in English."

IF--- by  RudyardKipling

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!

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YouTube Audio of IF with text: [Click Here]
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