Rudyard Kipling
Although not a poem written during the First World War, If was an idealistic banner for many young Empire soldiers.and represented that spirit and those ideals of manhood that struck a special cord for them.
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 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 lift 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! | |
|
Rudyard Kipling |
Lest we forget
Lest we forget
