Our second Victorian writer in the K's listing is Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936).
He was born in Bombay, India, and is best known for his works "The Jungle Book''(1894), "The Second Jungle Book" (1895), "Just So Stories" (1902), and "Puck of Pook's Hill" (1906); his novel, "Kim" (1901); his poems, including "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890) and "If" (1910).
He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story and his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature.
The author Henry James famously said of him: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known."
In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and he remains its youngest-ever recipient.
Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he rejected.
Today I am not going to make the obvious choice and post his poem "If'.
Instead, I have chosen something more political - The White Mans Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands.
In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the burden of empire, as had Britain and other European nations.
Together with "Recessional", published two years earlier, publication created considerable controversy and allegations of racism.
Regarded by some as anthems for enlightened and duty-bound empire-building (that captured the mood of the Victorian age), the two poems equally were regarded by others as propaganda for brazenfaced imperialism.
THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to naught.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.
Rudyard Kipling
Hello Colin: Nice choice - one can study Rudyard Kipling for several years and still be interested in him: friend of George V - Theodore Roosevelt et al. Theodore sent his troops to help us in France. 'Teddy' also sent troops to help the Russians, who were having a 'bad time' on their front. So, America did come through - as they did in our Second World War. The good old 'yanks!'Kipling encouraged his 17 year-old son, Jack, to join-up. A noble battle was still a romantic vision. The boy could not be accepted for he was badly handicapped by poor eyesight. Through various contacts by his father, Jack was accepted into the Irish Guards. Jack was killed on the very first day, in pouring rain, handicapped by mud, he led his men out of the trench, waving their inadequate, wet rifles in the air. Jack lost his glasses in the melee and was immediately lost. He, along with his men, were massacred as were thousands of our boys. The Germans had been well entrenched, they were well trained, they were well fed and they had machine guns: The Battle of Loos.Jack's body was never found, neither were thousands of other noble young Brits. Kipling never forgave himself. He was diminished. "Then how shall I live with myself through the years.....? Rudyard Kipling, The Question, 1916.Our British love affair with the romance of war came to an end during The Great War. It threw us into the Twentieth Century and we woke from our dream and everything changed.Charlotte