Kipling knew a fair amount about the East & he knew what price the British (including Scottish & Irish) Tommies paid to maintain the Empire. I utterly disagree with the intellectual conclusions he drew, but the more enlightened writers of his day were usually content to enjoy the benefits of Empire & fix their minds on Higher Things…
Besides, he could write.
I prefer the prose but his poems are undeniably powerful. I find Kipling’s post World War One poetry (like The King’s Pilgrimage) especially poignant, as Kipling’s only son had died at Loos. Oh and his work with the Imperial War Graves Commission should be acknowledged - he had a lot to do with the whole look and feel of the Commonwealth war cemetaries.
I believe the inscription “Known unto God” on the tombs of unknown soldiers was Kipling 's idea.
I like most of Kipling’s poetry. He definitely could turn a phrase.
As well as 'Their Name Liveth For Evermore" and “The Glorious Dead”.
I don’t think we can credit/blame Kipling for the inscription on the Machine Gun Corps Memorial though:
There are many fine ones. I think the best might be The Mary Gloster.
(It’s long, and probably needs to be read a couple of times.)
Kipling was pretty explicit about it in the last two stanzas, in which he says that man “dare not leave a place for her” at the table when conferring over war, since “no woman understands” the “God of Abstract Justice.” Because of this, woman “must command but may not govern.” And woman knows this - she accepts and even warns that she may not govern.
This is not an enlightened man giving women their due. It’s a 19th-century reactionary proclaiming the superiority of his own kind.
By the way, I also think Kipling’s point of view in The Female of the Species is plainly false. Women are not more savage than men. They are less eager to go to war. They are less prone to use violence. Women are not she-bears.
If you’re talking about the average woman vs. the average man, you’re probably right. However, some of us could scare she-bears.
I have always loved Jobson’s Amen for the way it contrasts blistering English jingoism with the most amazing, poingant, wistful imagery from all parts of the rest of the world:
[QUOTE=Kipling]
*
Blessed be the English and all their ways and works.
Cursèd be the Infidels, Hereticks, and Turks!*
“Amen,” quo’ Jobson, " but where I used to lie
Was neither Candle, Bell nor Book to curse my brethren by.
“But a palm-tree in full bearing, bowing down, bowing down,
To a surf that drove unsparing at the brown, walled town
Conches in a temple, oil-lamps in a dome
And a low moon out of Africa said: ‘This way home!’”
“Blessèd be the English and all that they profess.
Cursèd be the Savages that prance in nakedness!”
“Amen,” quo’ Jobson, "but where I used to lie
Was neither shirt nor pantaloons to catch my brethren by:
“But a well-wheel slowly creaking, going round, going round,
By a water-channel leaking over drowned, warm ground –
Parrots very busy in the trellised pepper-vine –
And a high sun over Asia shouting: ‘Rise and shine!’”
“Blessèd be the English and everything they own.
Cursèd be the Infidels that bow to wood and stone!”
“Amen,” quo’ Jobson, "but where I used to lie
Was neither pew nor Gospelleer to save my brethren by:
“But a desert stretched and stricken, left and right, left and right,
Where the piled mirages thicken under white-hot light –
A skull beneath a sand-hill and a viper coiled inside –
And a red wind out of Libya roaring: ‘Run and hide!’”
“Blessèd be the English and all they make or do.
Cursèd be the Hereticks who doubt that this is true!”
“Amen,” quo’ Jobson, "but where I mean to die
Is neither rule nor calliper to judge the matter by:
“But Himalaya heavenward-heading, sheer and vast, sheer and vast,
In a million summits bedding on the last world’s past –
A certain sacred mountain where the scented cedars climb,
And – the feet of my Beloved hurrying back through Time!”
[/quote]
I generally don’t like poetry. I read Kipling’s poems and the beginning of his stories or chapters, but if it doesn’t grab me right away I’ll skip it.
I memorized 2 from The Jungle Books and recited them to my daughters throughout their sleepless phases (one which has lasted nearly eight years and counting)
Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free–
The herds are shut in byre and hut,
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call!–Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
and also:
Now this is the Law of the Jungle – as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back –
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
(there is more, but while out of copyright maybe it isn’t appropriate to paste the entire poem)
Ipsa dixit.
Hmm, I had not heard of this although I have some of the late Peter Bellamy’s Kipling settings, which I LOVE. He too wasn’t the most melodious singer around, but the songs are really great IMO. Some of the poems that I never paid much attention to on the page (Cuckoo Fair, Ford o’ Kabul River, The Land, The Liner She’s a Lady, Astrologer’s Song) really haunt me in Bellamy’s settings. (Good discussion of Kipling settings in general here, mentioning both Bellamy and Fish.)
I’m fonder of Kipling’s rather sly frankly comic poems or chantey/ballad types (Code of Morals, Back to the Army Again, Cells) than I am of his (slightly mawkish, to be honest) dramatic or elegaic verses. But I have to say that I think Gentleman-Rankers strikes just the right note there: genuine tragedy that isn’t diminished by making fun of its own self-pity.
True dat. The deliberately naive tone of We and They does quite a good job with the same juxtaposition in a different way:
:dubious: No, I think you must be mistaken: that one’s about socialism.
Kipling’s Just So Stories are also worth a read with kids. Wonderful imagery and poetic flow, as in his reference in “The Elephant’s Child” to “the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees [where the] Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake” dwells.
For some reason, this (moderately famous) stanza from Arithmetic on the Frontier has got stuck in my head and won’t unstick:
Something about the rhythm. Or the meter. Or the cadence. (I was never quite sure how those things fitted together.)
That’s an excellent analysis of asymmetric warfare from a human resources point of view…
