ESL Blogs

Every year different generations of my 11^th grade students finish school in May. During the last English lesson I  usually present them, as my parting words, the poem of Rudyard Kipling "If”. It has become an annual farewell tradition. And every year different generations of students to my great pleasure admire the poem. It means they understand moral values of our life.

I decided to share this poem with you, as every line of it can be considered as a quotation. Rudyard Kipling is a famous English author and poet, born in Bombay, India. "If" is Kipling’s most famous poem. (1895). It is an inspiring, motivational poem about how to overcome difficulties. It emphasises the value of inner strength and the ability to not show your emotions. 

                                           Joseph Rudyard Kipling

                                   (1865 - 1936)

                                                               If    

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 them 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!

Knave -  a dishonest person (old fashioned usage)

Pitch-and-toss  - a gambling game played with coins

Sinew  -  a cord connecting a muscle to a bone

Foes  - enemies

If all men count you   - are important to you ( old fashioned)