Previous Next

“If—” features a simple rhyme scheme that repeats across the poem’s four octaves: ABABCDCD. Kipling manages rhyme carefully throughout, which gives the poem a sense of balance that mirrors the speaker’s investment in stoic self-composure. A key element of this balance relates to Kipling’s use of both masculine and feminine rhyme. Masculine rhyme refers to rhymes that fall on a single, stressed syllable at the end of a line. By contrast, feminine rhyme refers to rhymes that involve multiple syllables (usually two), where only the first syllable is stressed. Masculine and feminine rhymes appear throughout the poem in an equal mix, as demonstrated in the following lines (lines 5–8):

     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.

The words “waiting” and “hating” form a feminine rhyme because they both consist of two syllables, and they both end with an unstressed syllable. On the other hand, the words “lies” and “wise” make a masculine rhyme because the rhyme falls on a single, stressed syllable. It’s worth noting that the gendered language for describing rhyme is incidental. That is, the presence of “feminine” rhyme doesn’t contradict the poem’s overall interest in masculinity. On the contrary, it’s the balance between masculine and feminine rhyme that symbolizes the type of balance the speaker finds essential to manhood.

Previous section Meter Next section Key Poetic Devices

Take a Study Break