greykit.poetry — Rudyard Kipling

• 1919 [rudyard-kipling] The Gods of the Copybook Headings

  Kipling’s bleak parable — the plain truths you can deny, ignore, or outlaw, but never escape.

  #satire#prophecy#1910s
• 1910 [rudyard-kipling] If—
  Rewards and Fairies

  A father’s litany of self-mastery — the whole world for the price of composure.

  #inspirational#fatherhood#1910s
• 1910 [rudyard-kipling] The Way Through the Woods
  Rewards and Fairies

  A road the forest swallowed — and the ghosts you can almost hear still riding it.

  #nature#england#memory#1910s
• 1906 [rudyard-kipling] Cities and Thrones and Powers
  Puck of Pook’s Hill

  Empires bloom and fall like flowers — each blossom certain its brief season is forever.

  #time#history#1900s
• 1903 [rudyard-kipling] Boots
  The Five Nations

  The hypnotic, maddening tramp of infantry on an endless route-march (“Infantry Columns”).

  #soldiers#marching#1900s
• 1902 [rudyard-kipling] Sussex
  The Five Nations

  A lover’s map of the South Downs — “Yea, Sussex by the sea!”

  #england#landscape#home#1900s
• 1902 [rudyard-kipling] The Islanders
  The Five Nations

  A savage rebuke to a complacent England — “the flannelled fools at the wicket … the muddied oafs at the goals.”

  #empire#england#satire#1900s
• 1899 [rudyard-kipling] The White Man’s Burden
  The Five Nations

  Kipling’s notorious exhortation to the United States to take up colonial rule of the Philippines.

  #empire#imperialism#1890s
• 1897 [rudyard-kipling] Recessional
  The Five Nations

  A hymn against imperial pride, written for Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

  #hymn#empire#1890s
• 1896 [rudyard-kipling] The Song of the Banjo
  The Seven Seas

  The brash, portable music that follows the soldier and settler to the ends of the Empire.

  #music#empire#1890s
• 1892 [rudyard-kipling] Gentlemen-Rankers
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  The lament of well-born men sunk to the ranks — “poor little lambs who’ve lost our way.”

  #soldiers#lament#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Danny Deever
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A hanging at dawn, told in the whispers of the men paraded to watch it.

  #ballad#soldiers#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Ford o’ Kabul River
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A cavalryman grieves the mate he lost fording the river in the dark.

  #ballad#soldiers#grief#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Fuzzy-Wuzzy
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A soldier’s backhanded salute to the Sudanese warrior who broke the British square.

  #ballad#soldiers#sudan#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Gunga Din
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A soldier’s rough tribute to the native water-carrier who outdid them all.

  #ballad#india#soldiers#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Mandalay
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A time-expired soldier in grey London aches for Burma, a girl, and the road east.

  #ballad#burma#soldiers#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Screw-Guns
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A mountain-battery gunner’s swagger from the passes of the North-West Frontier.

  #ballad#soldiers#artillery#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] The Widow at Windsor
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  The Empire’s long reach, sung by the men who garrison it for “the Widow” — Queen Victoria.

  #ballad#soldiers#empire#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] The Young British Soldier
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A grizzled veteran’s blunt, brutal advice to the raw recruit shipped out East.

  #ballad#soldiers#india#1890s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Tommy
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  The soldier scorned in peacetime and cheered in war answers back.

  #soldiers#satire#1890s
• 1889 [rudyard-kipling] The Ballad of East and West
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  A border horse-thief and a colonel’s son meet as enemies and part as blood-brothers.

  #ballad#india#honour#1880s