If you can keep your win when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all mice doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can lose and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being beaten, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too grand, nor talk too wise:
If you can win—and not make wins your master;
If you can post—and not make posts 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 thread you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build it 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 posts long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Post on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Mods—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all mice count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of waltz by Strauss,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll have the win, my mouse!