"If —" - Rudyard Kipling

"If —" – 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 imposters 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 stop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If 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 in 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.

                           ---- 

‘If―’ – Rudyard Kipling 

 

1^st Stanza

 

The poet addresses to his son….

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

 

If you wanted to be a good human being and wanted to be successful man in life, you should keep calm when other people around you are losing their temper. You should not lose your temperament even if others are blaming you for their faults.

 

Losing the temper does not solve a problem, rather intensifies it. Keeping the head cool makes you think wisely to face these tough situations, and ultimately a solution comes out. 

 

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

 

You should have the faith in yourself, even when others doubt you. But after that, you should give some importance to their doubt too and try to find out what may be the reason for their suspicion. After all, “To err is human…’

 

So, by keeping faith in yourself, you make sure that you don’t get demoralized or disheartened. And, by allowing others’ doubt a little space of thought, you ensure that you are not doing something wrong knowingly or unknowingly.

 

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

 

You should work hard and wait for the result patiently. You should not get tired by waiting 

 

There are a number of real-life examples where people missed big opportunities only by losing their patience. Moreover, there goes a number of proverbs. “Hurry will bury you.” “Haste makes waste.” “Patience pays off.” So, it’s quite understandable why the poet makes a point for patience here.

 

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

 

People may lie about you to others, but you should not indulge yourself in lies. In other words, you should always remain truthful.

 

If you are misled or tempted to lie, people would ultimately discover the truth and won’t believe you anymore. That’s why it’s important to speak the truth even if that hurts you.

 

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

 

People may show their hatred towards you, yet you should not hate them. You should show your love and respect to others.

 

No man or woman is perfect in this world. Everyone has his strengths and weaknesses. You must accept that and respect them for the good qualities in them

 

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

You should not show yourself as too good a person or talk too wisely with common people, even after possessing such qualities.

 

Having acquired all these good qualities mentioned above, people generally feel proud and tend to show off how good they are. But the warns you not to go that way. In that case, others would feel uncomfortable in your company and avoid you. Even others may try to prove you wrong at any cost, leading to an unhealthy competition.

 

2^nd Stanza

 

If you can dream —and not make dreams your master:

 

To do something bigger, you should dream first. But the poet also reminds you not to be guided by unrealistic dreams. If dreams take the driver’s seat, you will get detached from reality and eventually fail.

 

There goes a saying — “You have dream first before your dream can come true.” So, we should dream to reach great heights in life, but keeping the reality in mind. 

 

If you can think —and not make thoughts your aim:

 

You should be able to think over a matter, but you should not make the thoughts your aim. That is to say that you often lose your radar and get detached from the main point. So, your thinking should not be scattered misleading you away from your target.

 

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:

 

Life is a combination of success and failure, joy and sorrow, good times and bad times. So, you should accept both and face both situations with similar treatment. 

 

Here the poet personifies Triumph and Disaster, calling them ‘two impostors’ (Pretenders or Deceivers). People become so happy in success that they can forget their duty at hand. You may get too complacent to be proud at a small success, reducing your chances to reach higher goals. Again, at bad times, if you are too grieved to lose your faith and confidence. In both cases, your regular course of work is hampered. That is why the poet calls Triumph and Disaster are ‘two imposters. He asks you to treat those deceivers with equal treatment with smiling face. In short, you should not be too happy or too sad under any circumstances.

 

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

 

You must bear the tough situations where you see that your speech or statement is distorted by someone to befool others.

 

Very often you see that people misinterpret or even deliberately distort your words to use it in their favour. You should not lose your temper hearing that. Rather you should tolerate that, ensuring you have spoken the truth. 

 

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

 

You must hold your nerves even after seeing that your favourite thing that you have built over the time with your own efforts is broken. Then you must pick up the scattered parts and build it all over again. This is another key to success and getting over the top of the world, according to the poet.

 

To keep you cool is not easy in such a situation. But patience and the mental toughness would help you build them again. Indeed, there is a story about Isaac Newton that the papers containing his theories were destroyed in fire, and he wrote them again from the beginning. 

 

 

3^rd Stanza 

 

If you can make on 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;

 

You should be able to accumulate all you have and take a risk in one turn of the game of pitch-and-toss. You may lose the game and all your possessions. But you must stay calm without uttering a word about that loss and rebuild it from the beginning. 

 

Here the poet talks about the capability of taking big risks to achieve much greater success and keeping quiet even if we lose the bet. This is yet another aspect of our mental toughness that you need to possess.

 

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!”

 

In the above four lines the poet reiterates the same theme of mental strength and the power of Wil. You must force your body (heart, nerve, and sinew) to serve you even after it has lost its strength due to old age or illness. Thus, you should keep on working driven by the power of Will which would ask them (heart, nerve, and sinew) to ‘hold on’ compelling them to do their job. 

 

If you want to do something great from your heart, the will inside you would prevent the body from getting tired. Indeed, there goes a proverb: “When going gets tough, the tough gets going.”

 

 

4^th Stanza

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings —nor lose the common touch.

 

You should stay in touch with people from every class of the society. You should be able to talk with common mass without losing your virtue or moral values.  Again, you should be able to walk with kings without going beyond the reach of the common people.

 

Being in touch with common people would help you realize the reality and feel the needs of the society. On the other hand, being in touch with noble people would give you the power and opportunity to reach your higher goals.

 

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

 

You should build yourself strong enough, mentally, and physically, so that neither your enemies nor your loving friends can hurt you. Moreover, you should develop healthy relationship with everyone around you, and should not allow anyone to harm you.

 

You must develop your personality in the right way, so that everyone supports you and gives you importance (count with you), but none too much. If you allow someone to give you too much importance, you may be emotionally bound. That may restrict our freedom and prevent you from doing your duty. Or you may get emotionally complacent thinking that you are so much liked by others, thus reducing your effort.  

 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

 

Time is precious. A minute is filled with sixty seconds. Time (minute) is here called unforgiving, as it waits for none and doesn’t forgive him who wastes it. You should utilize every minute of our life in productive work. Wasting time is not something you can afford in your short lifespan.

 

 

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

And —which is more —you’ll be a Man, my son.

 

Finally comes the achievement that you can get if you fulfill all the conditions mentioned so far. You can win this Earth and everything in it. You can go to top of the world and rule over everything. And what is more, you should be a complete and perfect human being.

 

 

 

Note: we should not forget that Rudyard Kipling wrote this poem for his son, as it is addressed in the last line of the poem. The poet wanted to show his son the right way to be a future successful leader. But it has inspired many people in their journey of life. 

 

----

Sonnet To Byron

 Sonnet To Byron – P. B. Shelley

 

(I am afraid these verses will not please you, but)

 

If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill

Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair

The Ministration of the thoughts that fill

The mind which, like a warm whose life may share

A portion of the unapproachable,

Marks your creations rise as fast and fair

As perfect worlds at the Creator’s will.

 

But such is my regard that nor your power

To soar above the heights where others (climb),

Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour

Cast from the envious future on the time,

Move one regret for his unhonoured name

Who dares these words: — the worm beneath the sod

May lift itself in homage of the God.

 

 

Sonnet To Byron – John Keats

 

Byron! How sweetly sad thy melody!

Attuning still the soul to tenderness,

As if soft Pity, with unusual stress,

Had touch’d her plaintive lute, and thou, being by,

Hadst caught the tones, nor suffer’d them to die.

O’er shadowing sorrow doth not make thee loss

Delightful: thou thy griefs dost dress

With a bright halo, shining beamily,

As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil,

Its sides are ting’d with a resplendent glow,

Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail,

And like fair veins in sable marble flow;

Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale,

The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe.

 

                       -----

 

Sonnet. On The Sea - John Keats

 Sonnet. On The Sea – John Keats

 

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate[mp1]  shores, and with its mighty swell

Gluts[mp2]  twice ten thousand caverns[mp3] , till the spell

Of Hecate[mp4]  leaves them their old shadowy sound.

Often ’tis in such gentle temper found

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be mov’d for days from whence it sometime fell,

When last the winds of heaven were unbound

Oh ye! Who have your eye-balls vex’d and tir’d,

Feast them upon the wideness of the sea;

Oh ye! Whose ears are dinn’d[mp5]  with uproar rude,

Or fed too much with claying melody, — 

Sit ye near some old cavern’s mouth, and brood

Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir’d!  

 

---

 [mp1]Uninhabited and giving an impression of bleak emptiness

 [mp2]An excessively aboundant supply of something

 [mp3]A large cave or chamber in a cave

 [mp4]A goddess of dark places, often associated with ghosts and sorcery

 [mp5] A prolonged uproar

                                -----

Come Down, O Maid - Alfred Lord Tennyson

 Come Down, O Maid – Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:

What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),

In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?

But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,

To sit a star upon the spire,

And come, for Love is the valley, come,

For Love is of the valley, come thou down 

And find him; by the happy threshold, he,

Or hand in hand with plenty in the maize,

Or red with spirted purple of the vats,

Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk

With Death and Morning on the silver horns,

Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,

Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,

That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls

To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:

But follow; let the torrent dance thee down

To find him in the valley; let the wild 

Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,

That like a broken purpose waste in air:

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth

Arise to thee; the children call, and I 

 Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

 

                           ----

I Give You Thanks My God / I Thank You God - Bernard Dadie

Here are two versions of translations Bernard Dadie's poem with similar titles  I Thank You God / I Give You Thanks My God  --- read and enjoy.

 I THANK YOU GOD – BERNARD DADIE

I thank you God for creating me black,

For making of me 

Porter of all sorrows,

Setting on my head

The world.

 

I wear the Centaur’s hide

And I have carried the World since the first morning.

 

White is a colour for special occasions

Black the colour for every day

And I have carried the World since the first evening. 

 

I am glad 

Of the shape of my head

Made to carry the World,

Content

With the shape of my nose

That must snuff every wind of the World

Pleased

With the shape of my legs

Ready to run all the heats of the World.

 

I thank you God for creating me black

For making of me

Porter of all sorrows.

 

Thirty-six swords have pierced my heart,

Thirty-six fires have burnt my body.

And my blood on all calvaries has reddened the snow,

And my blood at every dawn has reddened all nature.

 

Still, I am 

Glad to carry the World,

Glad of my short arms

of my long legs

of the thickness of my lips.

 

I thank you God for creating me black.

White is a colour for special occasions

Black the colour for every day

And I have carried the World since the dawn of time.

And my laugh over the World, through the night, creates

The Day.

 

I thank you God for creating me black.

 

-----

 

I GIVE YOU THANKS MY GOD – BERNARD DADIE

(translated by La Ronde des Jours)

 

I Give you thanks my God for having created me black

For having made of 

The total of all sorrows,

and set upon my head

the World.

 

I wear the livery of the Centaur

And I carry the World since the first morning.

 

 

White is colour improvised for an occasion

Black, the colour of all days

And I carry the World since the first night.

 

I am happy

With the shape of my head

fashioned to carry the World,

satisfied with the shape of my nose,

Which should breathe all the air of the World,

happy

with the form of my legs

prepared to run through all the stages of the World.

 

I give you my thanks my God, for having created me black,

for having made of 

the total of all sorrows.

Thirty-six swords have pierced my heart.

Thirty-six brands have burned my body,

And my blood on all the calvaries had reddened the snow

And my blood from all the east has reddened all nature.

And yet I am

Happy to carry the World,

Content with my short arms,

with my long legs,

with the thickness of my lips.

 

I give you thanks my God for having created me black,

White is colour for an occasion,

Black the colour of all days

And I carry the World since the morning of time.

And my laughter in the night brought forth day over

the world.

I give you thanks my God for having created me black.

 

                                 -----

 

I Give You Thanks My God / I Thank You God -- Bernard Dadie

 

Bernard Dadie’s poem “I Give You Thanks My God” / “I Thank You God” is a beautiful and thought-provoking anthem for black pride and their sufferings. The poem allegorically weaves around biblical, historical, and mythical tales.

 

Bernard Dadie is representing the entire black race to give his thanks to God for having made black men the bearers of the world’s sorrow. The poem is a symbolic assertion of the history of forced service / slavery and suppression that the black race has endured since “the first morning” and “the first night” of creation. 

 

“God called the light “day”, and the darkness He called “night”. And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day (Genesis 1:3)

 

From the origin of human race, the black men are made “the total of all sorrows” reveals that the biblical allusion to Jesus Christ as a man of all sufferings. 

 

“He was despised, and rejected by others; a man of suffering, and familiar with pain, like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem”. (Isaiah 53:3)

 

The poem “I Give You Thanks My God”/ “I Thank You god” is an apt and right way in comparing the black man to Jesus Christ bearing the weight of “The World” on his head in the livery of a Centaur, a mythological living being half-man, half-horse.

 

I am happy

with the shape of my head 

fashioned to carry the World,

satisfied with the shape of my nose,

which should breathe all the air of the world,

happy

with the form of my legs 

prepared to run through all the stages of the World

 

Bernard Dadie is pleased and proud to be a black man that they have been so formed to help him bear the total of all sorrows and sufferings and prepared to run through all the stages of the world. In all generations of human evolution, the black man has been a crucial role-player, leaving his footprints in the entire human history.

 

Thirty-six swords have pierced my heart.

Thirty-six brands have burned my body,

And my blood on all the calvaries has reddened the snow

And my blood from all the east has reddened nature. 

And yet I am

Happy to carry the World,

Content with my short arms, 

with my long legs,

with the thickness of my lips.

 

 Thirty-six swords have pierced my heart is very similar to the Christ on the cross where a spear thrust into his side. 

 

“But he was pierced for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5)

 

Thirty-six brands have burnt my body proved that he is a victim of all types of exploitations, a slave of more than one owner, eligible to be trampled by all. Like Christ whose blood reddened the snow of all calvary, the hill outside Jerusalem on which Christ was crucified, similarly the Blackman’s blood reddened the snow of the foreign lands in ruthless crimes of slavery and colonialism.  

 

Yet, Dadie is thankful to God for creating his race black because the white is only colour for an occasion but black is the colour of all days. He laughs in the night with his heart content hopefully that this laughter brings the strength to defeat the burden of his oppression.

 

-----

 

comments written by mastanappa puletipalli