Puisi Yang Setiap Lelaki Harus Tahu

IF

If you can keep your head while all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself while 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,
Yet never look too good, nor talk to 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 worn-out tools:

If you can make a heap of all your winnings
And risk it on a 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!

– Rudyard Kipling




p/s: Puisi ni padat dengan teladan dan kebijaksanaan, setiap baris makin dibaca semakin tajam pulak perginya , seusai membacanya semangat seakan berkocak,  seakan mencantum sisa kudrat dalam diri dan dapat dijadikan salah satu sumber pencetus motivasi.