Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
Is the poem “If” doggerel? It is not great poetry. It contains a great message, though. If this be doggerel, let us make the most of it.
If—
By Rudyard Kipling
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
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 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 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!
Discussion (8)
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Great wisdom in that poem. I think that makes it great.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Going to have to disagree with your assessment that it is not great poetry. The fact that it continues to be so well remembered and quoted tends to lend credence to it greatness.
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
There is high poetry and then there is the poetry that goes all earworm on us. Kipling spawns a lot of earworms.
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
This is a great poem. It is not necessarily great poetry. There is a difference. People remember the Pepsi jingle and Burma-Shave signs.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Thank you, Seawriter, for your contribution to the Doggerel of the Day series. For others who might want to post an old poem or original work, perhaps on the lighter side, you can sign up here: Doggerel of the Day November 2025 Sign-Up Sheet.
You're seeing five of eight comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.