If you can hold your beer when all about you
Are spilling theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can down ten pints when all men doubt you,
And make allowance for a whiskey too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting:
'I was at the bar first, don't deal in lies, '
Or being slated, be sure to return the slating,
And yet don't slur your words, nor talk too wise.
If you can drink and make the drink your master,
If you can drink and make the drink your aim,
If you can meet with vodka and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
When you were drunk and babbling like a fool,
Or see the pint that you were holding, broken,
And stoop, and buy another - which you'll drool.
If you can make one heap of all your dinner
And fall on it in front of your new boss,
And lose your job, and drink on, all the thinner,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your stomach and your liver
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on, and drink another river,
And tell the nagging woman to 'hold on.'
If you can make the craic your only virtue,
And walk with flies undone - a lovely touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends outdrink you,
If all men drink with you, and far too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of drinking done,
Yours is the curry, and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a drunk, my son!
Sean Godley
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-hic/
