One of the time honored traditions of Boston Latin School, where I went to High School, is public declamation. I wrote about this once before here. Three times a years, pupils in the 7th-10th grade had to recite a poem or prose, committed to memory, in front of their English class. If the teacher thought it was one of the best, you had the opportunity to compete in the school wide assembly. In retrospect, it was a great way to learn public speaking. In many ways, picking the right poem/prose was like selecting the right song on American Idol.  If performed badly in front of the class, or worse yet – in front of the entire school, you were done. Toast. Finis. As a result, I always selected my recitations with great care. First I Look at the Purse, the Smokey Robinson/Robert Rodgers tune, was one of my favorites and best received. I also loved Rudyard Kipling’s work, which clearly is a far cry from Smokey. Kipling’s Gunga Din was great fun to recite because of the cockney dialect that you could use in its delivery. But one of Kipling’s poems has stayed with me even now. It’s called If and it was written in 1895. If is all about leadership and it is as poignant now as it probably has ever been. It’s worth revisiting.

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, 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 imposters 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 wornout 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 breath 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!

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