IF.... Time for Another FR ReRun of Kipling's Classic: [IF]

Swarthmore ^ | At Just the Right Time! | Rudyard Kipling

[xzins]

[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 all 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!

--Rudyard Kipling

[xzins]

This is just worth remembering every half year or so.

[joesnuffy]

....THE HORROR!!....

[xzins]

i CAN SEE you aren't a true believer. LOL!!

[El Sordo]

At election time, this one seems more appropriate:

The Sons of Martha

The Sons of Mary seldom bother,
for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother
of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once,
and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons,
world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages
to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages;
it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly;
it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly
the Sons of Mary by land and main.

They say to mountains, "Be ye removed."
They say to the lesser floods, "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reproved --
they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit --
then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it,
pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

They finger death at their gloves' end
where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend:
they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear,
they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer,
and goad and turn him till evenfall.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden;
from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden --
under the earthline their altars are --
The secret fountains to follow up, w
aters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup,
and pour them again at a city's drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them
to drop their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways,
so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days
that their brethren's days may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood
to make a path more fair or flat --
Lo, it is black already with blood
some Son of Martha spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven,
not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given
to his own kind in their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed --
they know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed,
and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet -- they hear the World --
they see how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord,
and -- the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!

[xzins]

Very good. And the jungle book is not child's play.

[joesnuffy]

LOL...Im sorry..just a natural born smart ass (dumb ass?)...I couldnt resist
In truth I am a Kipling fan... the Poet/Warrior man of great integrity and insight that cuts to the quick.

[xzins]

Personnally, I think you, me, and Rudyard himself have GREAT appreciation for the smart asses in life. LOL!!

Where'd we be without the guy who occasionally says, "bullshit." (And sometimes just for the fun of saying it.)

[The Westerner]

Thanks for posting. Worth remembering daily. Also like his "Gods of the Copybook Headings." Would be a a good day for that one...

"...In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."