Tuesday, May 20, 2014

If


If you can keep your feet when all about you,
Are doing their level best to lay you low.
If you can vow – though all present will doubt you,
That you didn't mean to make that crushing blow.
If you can sing and not forget the lyrics,
Or drink and not fall down upon the floor;
And keep on when there is nothing in you,
Except the Will which says to them: “One more!”
....

If you can ruck and not get killed while rucking,
And send the ball when needed into touch. 
If neither kicks nor scrapes nor cuts can hurt you,
But you can return the same, though none too much.
If you can fill each unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of bruising run;
Yours is the game and everything that’s in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Gentlemen, my son!

As If they care, my apologies to George Orwell and of course Rudyard Kipling