Saturday, March 9, 2013

"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 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 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!


Vocabulary:
-Knave-a trickey decietful fellow

Analysis:
a) The poem is saying that, if you can stay calm when eveyone else is going mad and trust in yourself when others do not, but still acknowledge their doubts, then you are a man.  It goes on tho say that, if you can win everything, then lose it all, then start over again without a second thought about your defeat and realize that triumph and disaster are just illusions, then you are a man.  The poem continues to give many qualities of a man, and each has a restraint or a "but".

b) The theme is that being a man is not just being very smart, powerful, rich, or turning a certain age; but it instead has to do with your character and how you act.

Personal Connection:
     This poem really spoke to me because of the criteria it gives of being a man.  I feel that this poem serves a a very good model as to how I should act.  I know that I do not meet a lot of these criteria and I aspire to be the man that Rudyard Kipling describes.

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