If for COVID-19
By Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936); adapted for COVID-19 by Dr. Phyllis Hendry
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you or COVID;
If you can trust yourself when everyone doubts if they are safe,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can distance and not be tired by distancing,
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 with masks, gloves and goggles
–
yet 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 pre-COVID 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 patients, caregivers, colleagues and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings and Administrators
–
nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all people 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 COVID survivor and saint, my dear one!
