Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/663

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918
645

INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 645

See our line across the plain, Like a heel-rope bent again, Reaching, writhing, rolling far, Sweeping all away to war! While the men that walk beside, Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed, Cannot tell why we or they March and suffer day by day.

Children of the Camp are we,

Serving each in his degree;

Children of the yoke and goad,

Pack and harness, pad and load.

IF

TF 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: