IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance far 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 to 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're 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 warnout toys;

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 beginning's,
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn lang after they are gone,
And so hold on where 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 old 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!
 

THE BROKEN MEN

For thing we never mention,
For Art misunderstood --
For excellent intention
That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
From clouds we would not clear --
Beyond the Law's pursuing
We fled, and settled here.

We took no tearful leaving
We bade no long good - byes.
Men talked of crime and thieving,
Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
'T was time and time to go --
Behind was dock and Dartmoor,
Ahead lay Callao!

The widow and the orphan
That pray for ten per cent,
They clapped their trailers on us
To spy the road we went.
The watched the foreign sailings
(They scan the Shipping still),
And that's your Christian people
Returning good for ill!

God bless the thoughtfull islands
Where never warrants come.
God bless the just Republics
That give a man a home,
That ask no foolish questions,
But set him on his feet;
And save his wife and daughters
From the workhouse and the street!

On church and square and market
The noonday silence falls;
You'll hear the drowsy mutter
Of the fountain in our halls.
Asleep amid the yuccas
The city takes her ease --
Till twilight brings the land - wind
To the clicking jalousies.

Day long the diamond weather,
The high, unaltered blue --
The smell of goats and incense
And the mule-bells tinkling trough.
Day long the warder ocean
That keeps us from our kin,
And once a month our levee
When the English mail comes in.

You'll find us up and waiting
To treat you at the bar;
You'll find us less exclusive
Than the average English are.
We'll meet you with carriage,
To glad to show you round,
But -- we do not lunch on steamers,
For they are English ground.

We sail o' nights to England
And join our smiling Boards --
Our wives go in with Viscounts
And our daughters dance with Lords,
But behind our princely doings,
And behind each coup we make,
We feel there's Something Waiting,
And -- we meet it when we wake.

Ah God! One sniff of England --
To greet our flesh and blood --
To hear the traffic slurring
Once more trough London mud!
Our towns of wasted honour --
Our streets of lost delight!
How stands the old Lord Warden?
Are Dover's Cliffs still white?
 

THE OUTLAWS

Throught learned an laborious years
They set themselves to find
Fresh terrors and undreamed - of tears
To heap upon mankind.

All that they drew from Heaven above
Or digged from earth beneath,
They laid into their treasure - trove
And arsenals of death:

While, for well - weighed advantage sake,
Ruler and ruled alike
Built up the faith they meant to break
When the fit hour should strike.

They traded with the careless earth,
And good return it gave:
They plotted by their neighbour's hearth
The means to make him slave.

When all was ready to their hand
They loosed their hidden sword,
And  utterly laid waste a land
Their oath was pledged to guard.

Coldly they went about to raise
To life and make more dread
Abominations of old days,
That men believe were dead.

They paid the price to reach their goal
Across a world in flame;
But their own hate slew their own soul
Before that victory came.