I Could Not Dig: I Dared Not Rob: Therefore I Lied to Please the Mob. Now All my Lies are Proved Untrue, And I Must Face the Men I Slew.

Rudyard Kipling is one of those poets who mainly spoke for, and captured the hearts of, the common people, and not the effete literati of his day. Born in what was then British India, he spoke Hindi long before he was able to speak English. After boarding school in England, he returned to India, where he began his career as a journalist. His writing won him a reputation; he became the Poet Laureate of the British Empire in all but name. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and now reposes in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Some insist that that Kipling was a white supremacist or arch-imperialist; neither of these claims holds water. Yes, he invented the term "White Man's Burden", but understood this as the "White" Man's duty to spread his technology to the less technologically advanced people. Not once did he suggest that any race was superior to another; quite the opposite.

One criticism of him that I think is legitimate is that he did have a period during which he at the very least came perilously close to glorifying war. Kipling was almost obsessive in his animosity to German expansionism, and his disdain of those with less fervent beliefs. It wasn't until his only son, who had bent the rules to get to the front, fell, that he rethought and repudiated his glorification of war. In memory of his son, Kipling devoted a lot of his time to serving on the Imperial War Graves Commission.

Incidentally, Theodore Roosevelt, in whose memory Kipling wrote an elegiac poem, underwent the same transformation, when his son, who had memorized an eye exam chart in order to get into the war as an aviator, was shot down and died. To fathom the depths of Kipling's transformation, recall that Kipling's cousin served Her Britannic Majesty as her Prime Minister three separate times; his lines disparaging a dead statesman are not platitudes.

Epitaphs of the War

1914 - 18

Rudyard Kipling

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“EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE” A. “I was a Have.” B. “I was a ‘have-not.’” (Together.) “What hast thou given which I gave not?”

A SERVANT We were together since the War began. He was my servant—and the better man.

A SON My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.

AN ONLY SON I have slain none except my Mother. She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.

EX-CLERK Pity not! The Army gave Freedom to a timid slave: In which Freedom did he find Strength of body, will, and mind: By which strength he came to prove Mirth, Companionship, and Love: For which Love to Death he went: In which Death he lies content.

THE WONDER Body and Spirit I surrendered whole To harsh Instructors—and received a soul . . . If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was—what may The God not do?

HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE This man in his own country prayed we know not to what Powers. We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

THE COWARD I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

SHOCK My name, my speech, my self I had forgot. My wife and children came—I knew them not. I died. My Mother followed. At her call And on her bosom I remembered all.

A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here Get out—get out! He knows not shame nor fear.

PELICANS IN THE WILDERNESS (A Grave Near Halfa) The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn Where I am laid for whom my children grieve. . . . O wings that beat at dawning, ye return Out of the desert to your young at eve!

THE FAVOUR Death favoured me from the first, well knowing I could not endure To wait on him day by day. He quitted my betters and came Whistling over the fields, and, when he had made all sure, “Thy line is at end,” he said, “but at least I have saved its name.”

THE BEGINNER On the first hour of my first day In the front trench I fell. (Children in boxes at a play Stand up to watch it well.)

R.A.F. (AGED EIGHTEEN) Laughing through clouds, his milk-teeth still unshed, Cities and men he smote from overhead. His deaths delivered, he returned to play Childlike, with childish things now put away.

THE REFINED MAN I was of delicate mind. I stepped aside for my needs, Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar and killed. . . . How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds. I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.

NATIVE WATER-CARRIER (M.E.F.) Prometheus brought down fire to men. This brought up water. The Gods are jealous—now, as then, Giving no quarter.

BOMBED IN LONDON On land and sea I strove with anxious care To escape conscription. It was in the air!

THE SLEEPY SENTINEL Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep. I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep. Let no man reproach me again; whatever watch is unkept— I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.

BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION If any mourn us in the workshop, say We died because the shift kept holiday.

COMMON FORM If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.

A DEAD STATESMAN I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?

THE REBEL If I had clamoured at Thy Gate For gift of Life on Earth, And, thrusting through the souls that wait, Flung headlong into birth— Even then, even then, for gin and snare About my pathway spread, Lord, I had mocked Thy thoughtful care Before I joined the Dead! But now? . . . I was beneath Thy Hand Ere yet the Planets came. And now—though Planets pass, I stand The witness to Thy shame.

THE OBEDIENT Daily, though no ears attended, Did my prayers arise. Daily, though no fire descended Did I sacrifice. Though my darkness did not lift, Though I faced no lighter odds, Though the Gods bestowed no gift, None the less, None the less, I served the Gods!

A DRIFTER OFF TARENTUM He from the wind-bitten north with ship and companions descended. Searching for eggs of death spawned by invisible hulls. Many he found and drew forth. Of a sudden the fishery ended In flame and a clamorous breath not new to the eye-pecking gulls.

DESTROYERS IN COLLISION For Fog and Fate no charm is found To lighten or amend. I, hurrying to my bride, was drowned— Cut down by my best friend.

CONVOY ESCORT I was a shepherd to fools Causelessly bold or afraid. They would not abide by my rules. Yet they escaped. For I stayed.

UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE Headless, lacking foot and hand, Horrible I come to land. I beseech all women’s sons Know I was a mother once.

RAPED AND REVENGED One used and butchered me: another spied Me broken—for which thing an hundred died. So it was learned among the heathen hosts How much a freeborn woman’s favour costs.

SALONIKAN GRAVE I have watched a thousand days Push out and crawl into night Slowly as tortoises. Now I, too, follow these. It is fever, and not the fight— Time, not battle—that slays.

THE BRIDEGROOM Call me not false, beloved, If, from thy scarce-known breast So little time removed, In other arms I rest. For this more ancient bride Whom coldly I embrace Was constant at my side Before I saw thy face. Our marriage, often set— By miracle delayed— At last is consummate, And cannot be unmade. Live, then, whom Life shall cure. Almost, of Memory, And leave us to endure Its immortality.

V. A. D. (MEDITERRANEAN) Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne’er had found, These harsh Ægean rocks between, this little virgin drowned, Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed through pain And—certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.

ACTORS On a Memorial Tablet in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon We counterfeited once for your disport Men’s joy and sorrow: but our day has passed. We pray you pardon all where we fell short Seeing we were your servants to this last.

JOURNALISTS

On a Panel in the Hall of the Institute of Journalists

We have served our day.

Priorities

Rudyard Kipling: The Betrothed

“You must choose between me and your cigar.”
— Breach of Promise Case, circa 1885.


OPEN the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas—we fought o’er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.

Maggie is pretty to look at—Maggie’s a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There’s peace in a Larranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown—
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty—grey and dour and old—
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket—
With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket!

Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila—there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counsellors cunning and silent—comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,

This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee’s passion—to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent ’em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew—
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!