IF

After posting the poem “Success” yesterday, I was reminded of another poem,
“If”, by Rudyard Kipling. Both poems became very meaningful to me during an especially rough time in my life over 20 years ago.

Today I learned some lines from “If” are inscribed above the entryway to Centre Court at Wimbledon. See a video of Roger Federer reading an excerpt from “If” below.

On TV I just watched Melanie Oudin, a 17-year old from Marietta, Georgia, win a big match at the U.S. Tennis Open. Roger Federer is now playing as I write these words.

Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was a British author and poet who was born in Bombay, India. He wrote The Jungle Book (1894) while living in the United States. Some of his poems, like If (1910) are as well known as his books.

In 1907, Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.

IF
by 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 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!