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 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 the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old, 
Or your head will be sunk by your heels; 
And summer gales and Killer Whales 
   Are bad for baby seals. 
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat, 
   As bad as bad can be. 
But splash and grow strong, 
And you can't be wrong, 
   Child of the Open Sea!

When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,   
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold;   
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,   
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"   
   
Wherefore he called to his wife and fled to fashion his work anew— 
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;   
And he left his lore to the use of his sons—and that was a glorious gain   
When the Devil chuckled: "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.   
   
They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,   
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?" 
The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle derrick swung,   
While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in an alien tongue.   
   
They fought and they talked in the north and the south, they talked and they fought in the west,
Till the waters rose on the jabbering land, and the poor Red Clay had rest—   
Had rest till the dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,  
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"   
   
The tale is old as the Eden Tree—as new as the new-cut tooth—   
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;   
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,   
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"  
   
We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,   
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,   
We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart;   
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"   
   
When the flicker of London's sun falls faint on the club-room's green and gold,  
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mold—   
They scratch with their pens in the mold of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start   
When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it art?"   
   
Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the four great rivers flow,   
And the wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago, 
And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry through,   
By the favor of God we might know as much—as our father Adam knew.