Children of the Camp are we,
Serving each in his degree;
Children of the yoke and goad,
Pack and harness, pad and load. 
See our line across the plain. 
Like a heel-rope bent again,
Beaching, writhing, rolling far. 
Sweeping all away to war! 
While the men that walk beside,
Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed,
Cannot tell why we or they
March and suffer day by day.
  Children of the Camp are we,
  Serving each in hiss degree;
  Children of the yoke and goad,
  Pack and harness, pad and load.

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!

THE PRODIGAL SON

(Western Version)

Here come I to my own again,
Fed, forgiven and known again,
Claimed by bone of my bone again
And cheered by flesh of my flesh. 
The fatted calf is dressed for me,
But the husks have greater zest for me,
I think my pigs will be best for me,
So I’m off to the Yards afresh.

I never was very refined, you see,
(And it weighs on my brother’s mind, you see)
But there’s no reproach among swine, d’you see,
For being a bit of a swine. 
So I’m off with wallet and staff to eat
The bread that is three parts chaff to wheat,
But glory be!—­there’s a laugh to it,
Which isn’t the case when we dine.