If—

By Rudyard Kipling

“If—” is Rudyard Kipling’s poem of advice from a father to his son, listing the qualities of self-control, patience, and resilience that make a person “a Man.” Written around 1895 and first published in 1910 in Rewards and Fairies, the 32-line poem is a single sentence, and in a 1995 BBC poll it was voted Britain’s favorite poem.

Our reading is that the poem’s grammar is its message. Thirty lines of “if” hold back the reward until the final line, so the reader feels how hard and how conditional the ideal is. Its calm, steady music makes a severe code sound easy, and that tension is why it both comforts and demands.

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Summary · The Poem · Background · Analysis and Themes · Form and Technique · Notable Lines · Themes · FAQ
Glossary · In Popular Culture · Related Poems

Summary

A father sets out for his son the conditions of becoming a complete and admirable man. Across four stanzas, he lists them: keep a clear head when others panic and blame you, trust yourself without dismissing other people’s doubts, endure lies and hatred without returning them, and dream and think without being ruled by either.

He goes on: meet success and failure with the same calm, rebuild after ruin without complaint, risk everything and start again without self-pity, and move among crowds and kings without losing your integrity. Only if all of this is true, the last two lines say, will “the Earth and everything that’s in it” be yours, and, more than that, “you’ll be a Man, my son!”

The Poem

The text below follows Rewards and Fairies (1910), as transcribed by Project Gutenberg.

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!

Background

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in Bombay, India, and became the best-known writer of the British Empire, the author of The Jungle Book and Kim. In 1907, he became the first English-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote “If—” around 1895 but did not publish it until 1910, when it appeared in Rewards and Fairies, a book of stories and poems for children, placed after the story “Brother Square-Toes.”

In his memoir Something of Myself, published after his death in 1937, Kipling said the poem was drawn from the character of Leander Starr Jameson. Jameson led the Jameson Raid of 1895 and 1896, a failed armed incursion into the Boer republic of the Transvaal that helped push southern Africa toward war. What Kipling admired was not the raid but the composure with which Jameson bore the disgrace and imprisonment that followed. So the poem’s code of calm endurance was shaped by the aftermath of a colonial fiasco, and its virtues were the ones the Empire prized in its soldiers and officials.

Analysis and Themes

“If—” is so familiar from posters and graduation speeches that it is easy to stop reading it closely. Three things stand out when you do: its single-sentence structure, the Stoic philosophy at its center, and the severe demands hidden under its calm tone.

One Long Sentence, One Withheld Reward

The whole poem is one sentence. Thirty lines pile up conditions, “If you can… If you can… If you can,” and the main clause does not arrive until the last two lines: “Yours is the Earth… you’ll be a Man, my son!” The structure is the meaning. By holding back the reward until every demand has been listed, Kipling makes maturity and self-mastery feel exactly as conditional and hard-won as he says they are. The reader reaches “my son” almost out of breath.

Two Impostors Just the Same

The philosophical center of the poem is its most famous couplet: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same.” The key word is “impostors.” Neither success nor failure tells the truth about who you are, and neither lasts. Success can swell into arrogance, and failure can collapse into despair. The ideal is equanimity, a steady self that the swings of fortune cannot touch. This is essentially classical Stoicism, the belief found in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius that virtue lies in mastering your response to events, translated into plain English and practical advice.

The Cost of the Code

Behind the warm tone, the code is extraordinarily demanding. Never give way to hating, never breathe a word about your loss, force a worn-out body on when “there is nothing in you,” let neither enemies nor “loving friends” hurt you, and let “all men count with you, but none too much.” Taken literally, this is a portrait of a man so armored that nothing reaches him, and readers can fairly ask whether such control is strength or emotional shutdown. Modern critics also read the poem as an expression of imperial duty and the “stiff upper lip,” and its promise that the reward is to “be a Man” ties its virtues to a gendered Victorian ideal. None of this cancels the poem’s power. Its counsel of patience and resilience has steadied countless readers through real hardship, and the gap between its easy music and its hard standard is what keeps it alive.

Form and Technique

The poem has 32 lines in four eight-line stanzas of iambic pentameter, as in “if YOU can KEEP your HEAD when ALL a-BOUT you.” Each stanza rhymes ABABCDCD. Many rhymes are feminine, ending on an extra unstressed syllable (“waiting” and “hating,” “master” and “Disaster”), and they alternate with firm masculine rhymes. The effect is a line that tips forward and then lands, pulling the reader on to the next condition.

The most important device is anaphora, the repetition of “If you can” at the start of clause after clause. It creates an incantatory momentum and makes the long suspended sentence possible, as each “if” pushes the conclusion further off. The diction is plain and physical, with “pitch-and-toss,” “worn-out tools,” and “heart and nerve and sinew,” so a lofty moral argument stays grounded in the language of work.

Notable Lines

Three passages carry the poem’s opening challenge, its philosophical heart, and its long-delayed reward.

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

Lines 1 to 2

The first condition and the keynote of the poem: composure in the middle of chaos and unfair blame.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

Lines 11 to 12

The most famous lines, and the poem’s Stoic core. Neither success nor failure is the truth about you.

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!

Lines 29 to 32

The reward at last. The main clause arrives, and “my son” reveals the whole poem as a father’s counsel. The “unforgiving minute” insists that character is built in how each moment is used.

Themes

Four ideas run through the poem.

Self-control. Keeping your head, your temper, and your dignity under pressure is the first and last virtue the poem asks for.

Resilience. Losing everything and starting again without complaint is treated as a test of character, not a disaster.

Humility and balance. Do not look too good or talk too wise, and let everyone count with you, but none too much.

Manhood and duty. The reward is to become “a Man,” a Victorian and imperial ideal of quiet, dutiful strength that modern readers often question.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about “If—”.

What is the poem “If—” about?

It is a father’s advice to his son on how to become a good man. Through a long list of conditions, it praises self-control, patience, honesty, humility, and the courage to keep going after failure, and it promises that whoever meets them will “be a Man.”

Who wrote the poem “If—”?

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), the English author of The Jungle Book and winner of the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote it around 1895. It was first published in 1910 in his book Rewards and Fairies.

Who inspired Kipling to write “If—”?

Kipling said the poem was drawn from the character of Leander Starr Jameson, who led the failed Jameson Raid into the Transvaal in 1895 and 1896. Kipling admired the calm with which Jameson endured the disgrace and imprisonment that followed.

What does “treat those two impostors just the same” mean?

It means responding to success and failure with the same calm. Kipling calls Triumph and Disaster “impostors” because neither tells the truth about who you are, and neither lasts.

Why is “If—” so famous?

Its plain, memorable advice has made it one of the most quoted poems in English. In a 1995 BBC poll, it was voted Britain’s favorite poem, and its lines about Triumph and Disaster are inscribed above the players’ entrance to Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Glossary

A few words and phrases are old-fashioned.

• make allowance for (line 4): Take into account, or be understanding about.
• knaves (line 14): Dishonest people, rogues who twist honest words into a trap.
• ’em (line 16): Them.
• pitch-and-toss (line 18): An old gambling game in which coins are tossed at a mark, here a figure for risking everything on one throw.
• sinew (line 21): A tendon, and by extension physical strength.
• the common touch (line 26): The ability to get along with ordinary people.

In Popular Culture

Few poems have been so thoroughly woven into public life.

The lines “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same” are inscribed above the players’ entrance to Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, where Wimbledon is played.

In a 1995 BBC poll, “If—” was voted the United Kingdom’s favorite poem, and it has inspired countless parodies and imitations.

Related Poems

If this poem speaks to you, these share its creed of endurance and self-mastery.

• Invictus by William Ernest Henley: The other great anthem of the unconquerable self, ending “I am the captain of my soul.”
• Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson: A monologue of restless striving that ends “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
• A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: An earlier rallying cry to live earnestly and endure, in plain, direct counsel.
• The White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling: Kipling’s most notorious poem, which shows the imperial idea of duty behind “If—” in its harshest form.