KIPING’S POEM TO HIS SON

 

KIPING’S POEM TO HIS SON

English poet, writer and journalist, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, was born at Mumbai  on 30^th December1865 . He passed away in London on 18^th January 1936.

His father, Mr. John Lockwood Kipling , was then the Head of the Lahore School of Art.

Rudyard went to England in 1877, stayed there for five years and  is said to have picked up “useful knowledge” at the United Services College in Devonshire.

As he spent a lot of time in India in various capacities , including as a staffer of The Civil and Military Gazette and Pioneer, his experience of Indian life and culture was very extensive. Fortunately, he also had a rich experience of the life and culture  of other countries like  China, Japan, Africa, Australia and America.  Consequently, he had enriched himself with most of the core values of the East  and the West and was able to  express  them quite impressively in his writings. One of his powerful quotes  is : “Oh, East is East, West is West ,and never the twain shall meet”.  

His most  famous books are:  The White Man’s Burden, The Jungle Book, If, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi , Kim, Departmental Ditties, Plain Tales from the Hills and The Barrack Room Ballads.

             According to literary critics, Kipling was both a realist and a romantic. He had felt the glamour and wonder of life, as fully as the most ardent romantic, but he did not always speak of them.   

            Given below is one of his most famous poems “IF” addressed to his son .  it is about the  “Art of Successful Living in Difficult and Conflicting  Situations”.  Being as relevant for others as for his son , it is a frequently quoted poem all over the world.  

THE TEXT:       

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 of 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 matter;

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 wornout 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 Earth and everything that’s in it,

And --- which is more --- you’ll be a Man, my son!  

                                       ************

1^ST April 2021                                                                          G. R. KANWAL