I first encountered Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” in my early 20s. A friend of mine — born a Brit — named Sean King had been killed late one night. T-boned by a driver at an intersection. Sean was a pub-crawling, song-bellowing buddy. His father read the poem at his funeral. It made a powerful impression upon me. I suppose somebody of my historical interests should have already been familiar with the poem, but I wasn’t till then. Hearing it read in those circumstances, well… I certainly have never forgotten it.
That summer my friend Vince Bell and I climbed Mt. Whitney. At the summit there is a small lightning shelter with a book for hikers to inscribe. I left Sean a message: “To fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds of distance run.” Each day, I strive to do just that.
One is not supposed to regard “If” so highly. We’re meant to scoff at its certitudes now. We are supposed to sniff at its “jingoistic nonsense,” in the words of newspaper that recoiled in horror in 1995 at “If” being named Britain’s all-time favorite poem. Same sentiment, no doubt, that gave pundits the vapors when J.R.R. Tolkien was named “Author of the Century.”
Well, screw the carping critics, the tragically self-aware cynics. “If” a young man — or young woman — can live up to the qualities delineated here, they’ll do to ride the river with. These qualities are what H. Rider Haggard had in mind when his Hunter Allan Quatermain dedicated the second volume of his memoirs thus:
“I inscribe this book of adventure to my son ARTHUR JOHN RIDER HAGGARD — in the hope that in days to come he, and many other boys whom I shall never know, may, in the acts and thoughts of Allan Quatermain and his companions, as herein recorded, find something to help him and them to reach to what, with Sir Henry Curtis, I hold to be the highest rank whereto we can attain — the state and dignity of English gentlemen.”
All terribly old-fashioned. Yet the virtues represented in that “highest rank” were real virtues, if not always lived up to. Kipling was inspired to write the poem by the remarkable Frontier Partisan Dr. Leander Starr Jameson. More on “The If Man” in a future post.
Enough. Let us crack on.
If
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!
FP correspondent Keith West’s copy of “If,” inherited from his maternal grandparents.
Paul McNamee says
Great poem.
It’s a poem about being a man in the age it was written.
I’m not really seeing any “jingoistic” angle at all. Some people need hobbies.
JimC says
Yes, indeed.
john maddox roberts says
“If” was one of the poems we memorized in junior high English. That was somewhere between ’59-’62. It was a different world.
JimC says
“The past is another country” is a statement that grows more and more resonant — even the past that is well within the memory of us (relative) youngsters.
EVERY kid would do well to memorize “If” — and live by it.
Keith West says
“If” is one of my favorite poems. On the wall behind me there’s a framed copy of it I inherited from my maternal grandparents. I have no idea where they got it, or how old it is. The style makes me think it’s from the teens or twenties. It’s not just the text. There’s a color drawing of some trees and a road passing by a fortress in the background. It’s clearly meant to be art that’s to be hung on the wall. I’d post a picture if I could.
Anyway, thanks for the post, Jim. This is a great poem with words to live by. And if some critics don’t like, well, as you said, screw ’em.
Lane Batot says
Boy howdy, do I disagree with the whiners and dissenters regarding this! I do not even agree that it should be viewed as something from the past! If we do not have IDEALS to aspire to, what is left? Again that Ute quote I mentioned on this blog before; “When the legends die, the dreams end. When the dreams end, there is no greatness.” I had a copy of this given to me by my parents, as a very young kid, printed on an old rough piece of lumber(maybe because it was “old fashioned”?) that hung in my room–I have no idea what eventually happened to it, but in my “formative” years, I had it right before me to read and reread at all times. Not a bad influence at all, I’d say. The Kipling that “took” much better with my feral arse, however, was his “Jungle Books”!! I really believe Kipling was a literary GENIUS, myself. I’ve loved and been inspired by everything he wrote that I’ve got my hands on……
V Bell says
These are days of “hey look at me!” media shouting. That’s what the internet has become. This too will eventually fade into the dull din of history, leaving us right where we were after all advancements in information transmission, such as the roman roads, the telegraph, and the telephone.
The traits that make a man successful, and a woman successful, will be unchanged.
Kipling did not come up with new ideas; he organized age old observations. Those of us born 100 years after him are still inspired by his words, so I guess they transcend Victorian ideals.
If you heed his observations, you’ll be alright.
I hope my ten year old son glances at the copy on his wall once in a while.
deuce says
So this poem is “wrong” (as is LotR), yet it’s alright to wear the face of Che Guevara (a psychopath) on your chest? More and more, I have to think there are those among us who want Western Civilization to fall. Oh well, it’s good to see at least the British public still has good taste.
By the late ’70s, there was no Kipling in my state’s curriculum. However, my mom owned a collection of his. A foundational author, IMO.
Keith West says
I read Kipling on my own as well, with The Jungle Books being the gateway drug. The other poem of his that I really like and reread regularly is “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”.
And thanks, Jim, for posting the picture.
JimC says
You bet.
Wayne says
“If” says it all. I thought only we native Arkansas said “Boy Howdy.”
Lane Batot says
It’s simply an example of cultural evolution. You Arkinsonians are descended from us’ns here further East in the South. Although I heard the exclamation “boy howdy” a lot more when I was in Texas. But I havta wonder if it might be derived from an old Scottish or Irish expression originally………..
deuce says
A good, nuanced article on Kipling and his works:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/11005978/Jingoism-was-only-one-front-in-Rudyard-Kiplings-war.html
JimC says
Thx for that.