SI... RUDYARD KIPLING

Pensando en qué ocurre por la influencia de las Alas de la Mariposa me ha venido a la mente, quizás como el mejor medio de exorcizar los diablos que nos acechan. Un canto al valor... Quizás el más repetido de toda la literatura universal.

He preferido incluir la versión original en inglés. Cualquier traducción es interesada y por tanto tendenciosa...

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you

are loosing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

but make allowance of 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 knives to make a trap for fools,

or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

and stop and buid them up with worn-out tools.

If you can make a 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 nerve and sinew

to serve your turn long after they're 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 a distance run,

yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

and - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son.