If
Lyrics - Rudyard Kipling
Music - Castalia
This famous poem by Rudyard Kipling expresses the courage and spirit one must have in order to be ones best in serving the gods and men. It has consoled Castalia many a time, as she learns what it means to live her convictions.
"Keep pure your highest ideal. Let naught stop you or turn you aside"
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
Yet 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
Yet never 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 words you've spoken
Twisted 'round by knaves
To make a trap for fools
And watch the things
You gave your life to broken
And stoop and build them up
With worn out tools
If you can make
One heap of all your winnings,
And risk them 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 walk with crowds
And keep your virtue
Or talk with kings
Nor lose the common touch
When neither friends
Nor loving foes can hurt you
When all men count with you
But none too much
If you can force you heart
And nerve and sinew
To serve their turn
Long after they are gone
And hang on.. when
There's nothing left within you
Except the will
Which says to them hold on
If you can fill
The unforgiving minute
With sixty-seconds worth
Of distance run
Yours is the world
And all that's in it,
And what's more
You'll be a man my son.
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