IF...

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, not 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 or 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 where there is nothing in you

Except the Will that 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 or loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, yet 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

~~0O0~~

I used to be able to recite "IF" and tried to remember it here...I couldn't quite! But isn't it wonderful...no wonder it was voted the Nation's favourite.

Magpie and Reynard came to stay this week and as the weather was being particularly "April'ish" we decided it was high time we took ourselves off to Batemans, the home of Rudyard Kipling.

I must congratulate the National Trust ~ I know they are making efforts to ensure that visits are less "You can look but don't touch!" and they seem to be succeeding here. I particularly liked the old wireless in Elsie's sitting room that you can "tune" and listen to Ralph Fiennes reading extracts of Kiplings' work.

The whole house is fascinating and we whiled several hours away.. outside it thundered, hailed, rained and shone in equal turns.

 Enjoying those April showers wherever you are?

Sarah 

-x-

PS This is for Kay, Georgia Girl With An English Heart...I seem to remember you asking me to visit?