Five-minute digest
If—
Summary
If— is a father's counsel to his son on what it takes to become a man, delivered as one long conditional sentence. Kipling printed it in Rewards and Fairies (1910), a book of linked stories for children in which poems sit between the tales; If— follows the story Brother Square-Toes. In his memoir Something of Myself (1937) he said the poem was drawn from the character of Leander Starr Jameson, the leader of the failed Jameson Raid into the Transvaal at the turn of 1895-1896. The poem runs to four stanzas of eight lines each, in iambic pentameter with alternating eleven- and ten-syllable lines, so that every stanza swings between a falling and a firm ending. Nearly every clause opens with If, and the grammar keeps the reader waiting: the main clause arrives only in the final two lines. The first stanza deals with other people's judgment: keeping one's head when others blame you, trusting yourself while allowing for doubt, refusing to answer lies with lies or hatred with hatred, and yet not looking too good or talking too wise. The second turns inward to dreams and thoughts, which must serve rather than rule, and names Triumph and Disaster as two impostors to be treated the same. It ends with the picture of a man stooping to rebuild his ruined life's work with worn-out tools. The third stanza is about risk and endurance. The son may stake all his winnings on a single toss, lose, and start again without complaint, and he must drive heart, nerve, and sinew onward after they are spent, by a Will that tells them to hold on. The fourth balances the crowd and the king, friends and foes, and asks him to fill each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds of distance run. Then the promise comes: the Earth and everything in it will be his, and, which is more, he will be a Man. If— became one of the most quoted poems in English. A 1995 BBC poll named it the nation's favourite poem, and its lines on Triumph and Disaster are inscribed above the players' entrance to Centre Court at Wimbledon.
Top Lessons
Equanimity before fortune
Calling Triumph and Disaster two impostors means that neither tells the truth about a person's worth. Success flatters and failure accuses, and the poem asks the son to be moved by neither. The same steadiness governs his response to blame, lies, and hatred in the first stanza.
Rebuilding after loss
Two pictures of loss stand at the center of the poem: the life's work broken and rebuilt with worn-out tools, and the whole stake lost on a single toss. In both the son is asked to begin again quietly, without self-pity, which the poem treats as a sterner test than winning.
Manhood as a balance of opposites
Almost every condition pairs two extremes: trust yourself but allow for doubt, dream but do not be ruled by dreams, walk with Kings but keep the common touch, care for all men but none too much. The man the poem describes is defined less by any single virtue than by holding these in balance, much as Aristotle placed virtue in a mean.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;”
Frequently cited
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;”
“Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;”
“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,”
Frequently cited
“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!”