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--not 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!
When Earth's last picture is painted
� And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
� And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
� Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
� Shall put us to work anew
And those that were good shall be happy
� They'll sit in a golden chair
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
� With brushes of comet's hair
They'll find real saints to draw from
� Magdalene, Peter, and Paul
They'll work for an age at a sitting
� And never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us.
� And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
� No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
� And each, in his seperate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
� For the God of things as they are!
A Rose, in tatters on the garden path,
Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath,
Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush
Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush.
And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun,
Had pity, whispering to that luckless one,
"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well --
What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell?"
And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour
A voice said, `Father, wherefore falls the flower?
For lo, the very gossamers are still.'
And a voice answered, `Son, by Allah's will!'"
Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward,
Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord:
"Sister, before We smote the dark in twain,
Ere yet the stars saw one another plain,
Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task
That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask."
Whereat the withered flower, all content,
Died as they die whose days are innocent;
While he who questioned why the flower fell
Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell.
