Position:Home>Poetry> Poetry experts...I can't remember the name of the poem!! HELP?

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 KiplingWww@QuestionHome@Com

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The first answerer neglected to give you the title of the Rudyard Kilpling's poem!.!.!.it's called, "If"!. He wrote the poem for his son who'd gone off to WWI!.!.!.it was a poem literally from a father who'd been there, done that, and had learned much, to a son on the subject of what it took to be a "good man"!. The truly sad part is that his son was killed about two months after Kipling wrote the poem!. He was a nurse in a hospital tent that was accidentally shelled some distance from the front lines!. Rudyard Kipling was British and had spent many years in India!. He also wrote "the Jungle Book", and "Kim", and if you ever saw a movie called "The Man Who Would Be King", he was the reporter for the "Indian Star Gazette" who met the character played by Michael Caine on the train!. Now you know the poet, a bit about his background, who he wrote the poem for, and the tragedy surrounding his family and this poem!.!.!.this also happens to be one of my favorite poems and I have a copy of it framed over my desk!.

cheersWww@QuestionHome@Com

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