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 allowances 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 stoop and build 'em up with wornout 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!

Reprinted from Collected Verse, Rudyard Kipling, 1907.

Q: It is always easier to understand poetry if you read it aloud. What are the principles Kipling is advising in this poem? Take it line by line. What are the qualities that he sees as being important in growing up to become a man or woman? Do you agree with him?

Q: Can you see yourself moulding your character in the way he suggests? What would you change in yourself to do so?

Maxim Five: "Be truthful. Take miseries as Divine blessings for your own good and be thankful".
Maxim Six: "Know all people as thy brethren and treat them as such".
Maxim Seven: "Be not revengeful for the wrongs done by others. Take them with gratitude as heavenly gifts."
Maxim Eight: "Be happy to eat in constant Divine thought, whatever you get, with due regard for honest and pious earnings."
Maxim Nine: "Mould your living so as to rouse a feeling of love and piety in others."

Q: Can you relate these maxims to Kipling's poem?

O, Master!
Thou art the real goal of human life.
We are yet but slaves of wishes
Putting bar to our advancement,
Thou art the only God and power
To bring us up to that stage.