IF<P>If you can keep your head when all about you<BR>Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,<BR>If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you<BR>But make allowance for their doubting too,<BR>If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,<BR>Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,<BR>Or being hated, don't give way to hating,<BR>And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: <BR>If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,<BR>If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;<BR>If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster<BR>And treat those two impostors just the same;<BR>If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken<BR>Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,<BR>Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,<BR>And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: <BR>If you can make one heap of all your winnings<BR>And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,<BR>And lose, and start again at your beginnings<BR>And never breath a word about your loss;<BR>If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew<BR>To serve your turn long after they are gone,<BR>And so hold on when is nothing in you<BR>Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" <BR>If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,<BR>Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,<BR>If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;<BR>If all men count with you, but none too much,<BR>If you can fill the unforgiving minute<BR>With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,<BR>Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,<BR>And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! <BR>Rudyard Kipling <P><BR><P>------------------<BR>BB<BR>
