If— in the life

• You're rnd, McCracken, circa 1918
• If you can stand the Quest, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew, 1921
• An “If” for Girls, Elizabeth Lincoln Otis, 1931
• If (after Rudyard Kipling), A.L.S., circa 1943
• If (By Mr. Kipling), Kevin Connolly
• Advice to an Applicant , Jonathan Robin in 2005
• If— (you want to be a true jihadi), John Derbyshire in 2006

You're rnd

• If you can keep your head when all around you
• is shot and shell and bomb and poison gas;
• If you can keep your watch though dugout tempts you,
• As round your post death's missiles fiercely pass,
• If you with calm can face the hellish war-tune
• If you can fight, though fightings not your aim;
• If you can meet with vic'ry or misfortune,
• And treat them both as part of the great game,
• If you can bear the risks and daily terrors
• Of frontline trench or billets nightly shelled,
• And serve the staff as though they've made no errors,
• Though often, perhaps, quite different views you've held;
• If you can speculate upon your chances
• Of winning through, and count them ten to one,
• And take the lot on counting deaths last dances
• Where duty calls or honour to be won;
• If you serene can face the shell made curtain,
• and through it merge, with courage undismayed,
• Nor turn right nor left to make more certain
• You're not alone—not alone being unafraid;
• if though you wish for peace, you've yet decided
• You will not sheath the sword you wear today;
• Even though in arms you may have long abided,
• You'll carry on till foes shall own your sway;
• If you can kill the Huns and keep on killing,
• Until at length they cry aloud, “you've won!”
• Yours is the corps whose glories send hearts thrilling,
• You're justly proud—you're rnd, my son.

If you can stand the Quest

• 
• If you can stand the Quest and all her antics
• When all around you turn somersaults upon her deck;
• And go aloft when no one has told you
• And not fall down and break your blooming neck;
• If you can work like Wild and also like Wuzzles
• Spend a convivial night with some old bean,
• And then come down and meet the Boss at breakfast
• And never breathe a word of where you've been.
• If you can fill the port and starboard bunkers
• With fourteen tons of coal; and call it fun;
• Yours is the ship and everything that's in it
• And you're a marvel; not a man my son.

An “If” for Girls

• If you can dress to make yourself attractive,
• Yet not make puffs and curls your chief delight;
• If you can swim and row, be strong and active,
• But of the gentler graces lose not sight;
• If you can dance without a craze for dancing,
• Play without giving play too strong a hold,
• Enjoy the love of friends without romancing,
• Care for the weak, the friendless and the old;
•  
• If you can master French and Greek and Latin,
• And not acquire, as well, a priggish mien,
• If you can feel the touch of silk and satin
• Without despising calico and jean;
• If you can ply a saw and use a hammer,
• Can do a man's work when the need occurs,
• Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer,
• Can rise above unfriendly snubs and slurs;
• If you can make good bread as well as fudges,
• Can sew with skill and have an eye for dust,
• If you can be a friend and hold no grudges,
• A girl whom all will love because they must;
•  
• If sometime you should meet and love another
• And make a home with faith and peace enshrined,
• And you its soul—a loyal wife and mother—
• You 'll work out pretty nearly to my mind
• The plan that 's been developed through the ages,
• And win the best that life can have in store,
• You 'll be, my girl, the model for the sages—
• A woman whom the world will bow before.

If (after Rudyard Kipling)

• If you can join the Group whilst fellow workers
• Are hanging back and leaving it to you—
•  
• If you can pay your sub. and show the shirkers
• You 're out to beat “Old Nasty” and his crew—
• 
•  
• If you can urge them to the resolution
• To sign the form and undertake their share—
•  
• If you can raise your weekly contribution
• Another sixpence here, a sixpence there,
•  
• If you can watch your savings ever growing
• With more Certificates at fifteen bob,
•  
• And watching them, can feel a pride at knowing
• They go to help Old England do her job—
•  
• If you can keep your book and all that 's in it,
• Nor seek repayment till the fight is won,
•  
• Peace shall be yours, for you will help to win it—
• And what is more, I know you can, my son!

If (By Mr. Kipling)

• If you can bake a cake when all about you
• Are burning theirs and blaming it on you;
• If you can trust your buns when bakers doubt you,
• Then make allowance for their doubting too.
• If you can bake and not be tired by baking,
• Get your jam-tarts out, don't make rhubarb-pies.
• Don't make toast or give way to brown bread-making,
• And yet don't burn your scones, and you'll be wise.
•  
• If you can make one heap of all your fine buns
• And turn them into one huge wedding-cake,
• Fine-sprinkle the top with hundreds and thousands,
• Then that would be the best cake you could make.
• If you can force your dough into a huge pan
• To serve your turn long after you are gone,
• Then maybe you would rather make a big flan?
• And don't forget to make the odd croissant.
•  
• If you can bake with crowds and keep your virtue,
• Or bake with kings, don't lose the common touch.
• If neither cake nor bun-eaters can hurt you,
• Then fill their tums with toffee, jam and fudge.
• If you can fill the unforgiving minute
• With sixty seconds' worth of baking, run…
• Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
• And—which is more—you'll bake a cake, my son!

Advice to an Applicant

• If you can back your boss and keep on smiling,
• while toning down his brash absurdities,
• if, having watched the man manhandle filing,
• you rearrange the folders pretty please,
• if coy and charming, beautiful, beguiling,
• anticipating all contingencies,
• you manage new accounts, contacts redialling,
• correct crass spelling, cover vagaries...
•  
• If you can keep your head while he 's resiling,
• evolve successful counter-strategies,
• if ‘mum 's the word’, discrete, effective tyling,
• from busy-bodies safe when he agrees.
• If you can spend your time in reconciling
• his intellectual inanities,
• never upset his fragile ego, heiling
• whene'er he feels the need, or profits sneeze...
•  
• If Windows easy comes, while modem dialing
• to DSL migration 's not a tease,
• if firewall free from viruses hostiling
• you clean can keep, recalling password keys,
• if the above you show him recompiling
• the data lost when he lacks expertise, -
• yet know your place as cypher, never riling,
• remembering to bow before ‘big cheese’...
•  
• If you can stand him publicly reviling
• your good ideas, then claim them his with ease,
• can watch while rival's ruin he 's compiling
• so coldly that a lizard's blood would freeze.
• If when betrayed by his ambitious wiling
• you triumph through innate abilities,
• ignoring basic scheming, baser guiling,
• you seize the precious point he never sees! ...
•  
• If you won't blush when, rash, he 'll rush, exiling
• your intuitions as freak fantasies,
• but confidently while free-time he 's whiling,
• circumvent his incapacities.
• Surpassing him in brains, tact, versatiling,
• you never strive to swap your salaries,
• but both feet on the ground, still patient, smiling,
• can counteract his incoherencies...
•  
• If you are sure his image needs restyling,
• select the suits that suit down to the tees,
• if you are ever ready camomiling,
• or sprinkling sugar, creaming, coffee, teas,
• if you can trick his wayward infantiling
• and censure not his immaturities,
• ignore his clumsy tries at fond defling,
• yet fondled, tactful, rise from off his knees...
•  
• If you take three degrees while reconciling
• your private life to further Ph.D.'s,
• if you can children bear without work piling
• and keep them free from trouble and disease,
• if you can spring his quick promotion – vile thing –
• and play the game of happy families...
• Yours is the job, the rest 's cosmetic styling,
• the prized princess and pride of... secret'ries!

If— (you want to be a true jihadi)

• If you can hack the head off from a hostage
• Who 's kneeling bound and helpless on the floor;
• If you can purge yourself of each last vestige
• Of decency, morality, and Law;
• If you can hate and never tire of hating,
• Or, faced with truth, still hold fast to your lies,
• Or, while you 're hard at work decapitating,
• Show no trace of pity in your eyes:
•  
• If you can teach your kids the “victim” story,
• Stir Muslim losers trapped in English slums,
• Fill youthful heads with crackpot dreams of glory,
• And urge them on to fiery martyrdoms;
• If you can use religion as a cover
• For deeds no man could pardon or excuse,
• Or claim that all the ills we humans suffer
• Are machinations of the evil Jews:
•  
• If you can use the fruits of Western science
• (A science that your culture cannot match)
• To broadcast all your hatred and defiance,
• Or carry out your crimes with more dispatch;
• If you can put aside sectarian violence,
• Co-operate with Shi'ites from Iran,
• Unite Islam; intimidate to silence
• All Muslims who won't sign up to your plan:
•  
• If you can fly a plane into a building
• Filled with harmless folk you 've never seen,
• Or seize a school that 's full of little children
• And murder them when rescuers break in;
• If you can fill each precious living minute
• With sixty seconds' worth of evil done,
• Yours is heaven, and all the virgins in it,
• And then you 'll be a real jihadi, son!

If elsewhere

• Remember Cliffside High, by Geraldine Wall, December 1946
• Rudyard Kipling as a Job Consultant, by Frank Jacobs, 1994
• If (you can keep your computer on), by Anastasia Levin, 11 November 2001
• If (you can keep your sword), by Enuf al-Ready, 11 May 2005
• Hillary's Message to Girls, by Helen Heightsman Gordon, May 2008
• If, by Bob Newman, on managementspeak