Rudyard Kipling

除了小學讀過改寫的"叢林奇談"
還沒完整讀過他的作品原文
記下當提醒

Daily Highlights Sunday, December 30, 2007

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Kipling and Friends
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Author of short stories, poems and novels Rudyard Kipling was born on this date in 1865. Kipling's very poor vision kept him out of the navy, but it didn't keep him from sailing the seas from India to England, Africa and the Americas many times over. Kipling turned down the offer of a knighthood and the post of England's Poet Laureate. He did, however, accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. In 1995, Kipling's poem "If —" was voted Britain's most popular poem in a BBC poll. Kipling said that he had the traits of Leander Starr Jameson in mind when he wrote of what it takes to be a man.

Quote

"Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest." — Mark Twain, of Rudyard Kipling

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!

如果在众人六神无主时，你能镇定自若而不人云亦云；
如果在被众人猜忌怀疑之日，你能自信如常而不枉加辩驳；
如果你有梦想，而又不会迷失自我；
如果你有神思，又不至于走火入魔；
如果你在成功之中，不望形于色；
而在灾难之后也勇于咀嚼苦果；
如果你听到自己说出的奥妙,
被无赖歪曲成面目全非的垃圾不生艾怨；
如果看到自己追求的美好,
受天灾成为一堆瓦砾也不说放弃；

如果你是辛苦劳作已是功成名就,
还是冒险一搏，哪怕是功名化为乌有,
即使你惨遭失败，也仍要从头开始；
如果你和村夫交谈而不失谦恭之态,
和侯王散步而不露诌媚之颜；
如果他人的爱憎左右不了你的正气；

如果你与任何人为伍都能卓然独立；
如果昏惑的骚扰动摇不了你的意志；
你能等心平气和再作答时——
那么你的修养就如天地般地博大，
而你,就是一个真正的心智成熟的人。