Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sabrinawaiz]

Dear teachers,

Below is a classic poem, 'IF' by Rudyard Kipling:

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 imposters 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 wornout 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 breath 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!

Could anyone please help me to grasp the meaning of this line?

[suesummers]

I think he is using the sixty seconds to give expanse to the minute. A minute seems tiny in itself but we can use a bigger figure like 60 seconds to make it seem larger. Just as in two months or eight weeks.
_________________
Centennial College Rocks!

[sabrinawaiz]

@suesummers:
Thank you very much for your explanation.

[pugachevV]

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run.

Means, if you live every second of your life to the full.

[lotus]

Hi Sabrinawaiz,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Could also mean:

In that short moment of time when things are tough (tribulation)
you still press on and give it all you've got (perseverance)

It also implies that the unforgiving (tough) minute seems to last much longer as you go through it in sixty seconds, one second at a time (like giving your effort one ounce at a time).


--lotus
_________________
War does not make one great --Yoda

[sabrinawaiz]

Thank you suesummers.
Thank you pugachevV.
Thank you lotus.

I am clear with what the poet is trying to convey.