A POEM FOR BOYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 4 (Supplement)

A POEM FOR BOYS.

One of our members asks me to print/ the poem Rudyard Kipling wrote specially for boys. Well, here it is, under this note, although the excellent advice in the poem is, as much for girls as for boys. I -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 of waiting; ' Or, being lied about, don't deal :n lies; Or, being hatedy don't give way to hating. And yet don't look too good or talk too wise. If you can dream, and no| make dreams youi - master; If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster, And treat thoso two impostors just tho same. 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 tbem, " 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 minuto With sixty seconds' worth of distance run; Your's is tho earth and everything that's in it, And—what is more—you'll be a man, my; son.

"Boy.'* Own" next Saturday. Heading, stories, letters, jokes, riddles—all the work of boy members of Herald Circles. A great effort I