<P> 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 a 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! </P> <P> As an evocation of Victorian - era stoicism--the "stiff upper lip" self - discipline, which popular culture rendered into a British national virtue and character trait, "If --" remains a cultural touchstone . The British cultural - artifact status of the poem is evidenced by the parodies of the poem, and by its popularity among Britons . </P> <P> T.S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse . </P> <P> In India, a framed copy of the poem was affixed to the wall before the study desk in the cabins of the officer cadets at the National Defence Academy, at Pune and Indian Naval Academy, at Ezhimala . In Britain, the third and fourth lines of the second stanza of the poem: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / and treat those two impostors just the same" are written on the wall of the players' entrance to the Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, where the Wimbledon Championships are held . </P>

If you want a second to breathe lyrics