Rudyard Kipling's "If"
The Daily Poem
Goldberry Studios
4.6 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2023
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s poem is dedicated to my son, Coulter, who turns twelve today.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (/ˈrʌdjərd/ RUD-yərd; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)[1] was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology (The Jungle Book, 1894; The Second Jungle Book, 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).[2] His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.[3] His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".[4][5]
—Bio via Wikipedia
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm David Kern, and today is |
| 0:04.9 | September 28, 2023. Today's poem is dedicated to my son, Coulter, who turns 12 today. So I'm |
| 0:14.0 | going to read a poem for him. This is a very famous poem, of course. It's by Rudyard Kipling, |
| 0:19.1 | who was born Joseph Rudyard Kipling in December |
| 0:21.0 | of 1865. He died in January of 1936, and he was a short story writer, journalist, and poet. |
| 0:28.1 | He is most famous for The Jungle Book and Just So's Stories, but he also wrote The Man Who |
| 0:33.6 | Who Would Be King and a wide variety of poems, including the one that you're going to hear today. |
| 0:39.4 | I've actually read this poem on this podcast, but it's been several years. And I wanted to |
| 0:44.4 | read it this time with my son in mind. So for those of you with children, I think you'll understand |
| 0:51.0 | why. If you are a child, I think you'll also understand why. It's just a great poem. It's a great poem formally. It's also full of good ideas. And if it's |
| 1:00.5 | a tiny bit sentimental at times, well, maybe that's okay because I'm perhaps feeling a touch |
| 1:05.2 | sentimental today. Here is If by Rudyard Kipling. |
| 1:18.2 | If you can keep your head when all about you or losing theirs and blaming it on you, |
| 1:23.2 | 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, |
| 1:31.1 | or being lied about, don't deal in lies, |
| 1:34.2 | or being hated, don't give way to hating, |
| 1:37.6 | and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. |
| 1:42.9 | If you can dream and not make dreams your master, |
| 1:44.2 | if you can think and not make dreams your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim. |
| 1:49.6 | If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same, |
| 1:56.1 | if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, |
| 2:03.1 | or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools, |
... |
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