Have you ever read a great piece of writing, put it away, gotten it back out, and on rereading it, found it had a different, maybe bigger meaning? I did recently.
We do that with Bible verses, of course, all our lives. Some do it with history, biographies, and short stories. I did it recently with Kipling’s epic poem, “If.”
Kipling was a complicated man, born 160 years ago this month. His wife was American. At 42, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He wrote stories like “The Jungle Book” and “Kim.” But for my money, short as it is, “If” is his masterwork.
He wrote it for his son, John, who was then 13, and who later died in WWI. The impact of the poem, however, is broader than one man’s counsel to his son.
The first verse of “If” is almost contemporary, and applies to all of us:
“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 to…”
Is that not the challenge of our age, having outsized patience every day? How often are we incited, invited to lose our heads, taunted with nonsense, yet at the same time reminded by our Christian roots to judge less, listen more, have mercy?
His second verse is similar:
“If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, or, being lied about, not deal in lies, or being hated, don’t give way to hating, and yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…”
Are these not the great provocations of our time, to put up with bureaucracy, no accountability, automated answers, to become impatient, to listen to people condemn our beliefs, mouth hate for who we are, yet not “give way to hating”?
Verse three is positive, yet also cautionary:
“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 imposters both the same…”
We must not forget to dream, teach kids to dream, and to think for ourselves, and they for themselves, but also remember to act. Then take wins and tragic losses as “impostors,” since neither is as real as recovery or as deep as faith.
Verse four is fortification:
“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…”
How often are we intentionally misinterpreted, words made a strawman, then attacked and used to deceive? How often does the veteran see his life’s sacrifices unappreciated, misused, lost but unto God alone – yet he or she keeps giving?
Verse five is the challenge to risk:
“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…”
How often do we risk and fail, taxes wipe us out, a health situation nearly bankrupts us, or we start a business, no backup, hard times hit, must start again?
Sixth is a plea for courage:
“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!’”
Is that not the real calling, to “hold on,” to have courage? Caregivers, parents, employees, business owners, veterans, and public servants – are under enormous stress, physical challenges, yes, but not breaking is about hope when hope is hard to see.
The seventh verse is a plea for the integrity of our souls:
“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…”
For most, the common touch is what we have, yet how hard is it to see friends walk away, condemn us, stoke hate, reminding us they do count, “but none too much.”
Eighth is pure inspiration:
“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!”
Here is where my new reading comes in, thinking this poem is ours, even 115 years after it was written. Here are aspirations worth straining for, even now.
So maybe it should end: “And which is more – you’ll be the citizen you want as a neighbor, leader we once enjoyed, when they were old, and I was just a boy.”
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
