This man penned what i consider to be one of the best poems ever written.
He was born in Bombay India to British parents.
"Young Rudyard's earliest years in Bombay were blissfully happy, in an India full of exotic sights and sounds. But at the tender age of five he was sent back to England to stay with a foster family in Southsea, where he was desperately unhappy. The experience would colour some of his later writing." kipling society
At age 5 he was sent to England as was the custom for many settler families so that their childeren would be imbued with the English culture.
I am a little hesitant to co-sign him 100% because of how much he did to support British imperialism. In fact he was a close friend of Cecil Rhodes, whom Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was named after.
The big question here is how some of these ostensibly honorable men in history including the classic example of George Washington, were able to draw a dichotomy between ethical standards for their class and race on one hand and for the downtrodden people they were lording over on the other.
Other than that, if we look at as art for art's sake, we cannot help but fall in love with Kipling's poetry.
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 impostors 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 worn-out 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 breathe 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!
