If - Poetry Collection (Grey Wood) - Art Print

While best known for The Jungle Book, English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling, was known also for his poetry. "If" was written in 1895 as a tribute to Leader Starr Jameson and was first published in "Rewards and Fairies." It is written in the form of advice to the poet's son.    "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 wo