Ping for later
My favorite Kipling
Perhaps the gentle modern tongue would give it more light
But I doubt it
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Kipling
Hah … the “responses” ignore the obvious.
Squalid conditions are created by squalid people. One cannot lift squalid people out of squalor by giving them free stuff. They have to do it themselves … They have to quit being squalid.
You left out Kipling’s salient warning.
“Take up the white mans burden,
The savage wars of peace
Fill full the mouth of famine
And bid the sickness cease
And when your goal is nearest, your hope for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your works to nought.
Mark
Okay
Here’s the complete version.
The White Man’s Burden
by Rudyard Kipling - February, 1899
Take up the White Man’s Burden—send forth the best you breed—go send 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 a 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 nought.
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 you shall not enter, the roads you shall not tread, go mark 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 you better, the hate of those you guard—the cry of hosts you humor (Ah slowly) to the light: “Why brought you us from bondage, our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s Burden—you dare not stoop to less—nor call too loud on freedom to cloak your weariness; by all you cry or whisper, by all you 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 proffered 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!