Rudyard Kipling - IF
( Lettera al figlio, 1910 )
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, don¹t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don¹t give way to hating
And yet not look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - but not make dreams your master,
If you can think - but 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 you¹ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all 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: ³Hold on!²
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings, yet not 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 seconds¹ worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything in it,
And, what is more, you¹ll be a Man, my son!