8/3/2019 Poem by Rudyard Kipling

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Poem by Rudyard Kipling, The White

Mans Burden (1899)From McClures Magazine, 21 (February 1899), p. 291.

One of the great questions occupying the the U.S. public at the turn of the twentieth century wasthe fate of the Philippines following the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War. In 1896

Filipino nationalists had revolted against Spanish rule. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, the

nationalists supported the United States when it declared war against Spain in April 1898. InJune, Aguinaldo declared Filipino independence, and in January 1899 he was elected president.

However, the United States refused to recognize the new government. Feeling betrayed,

Aguinaldo declared war on the United States in February. The ensuing debate regarding theappropriate policy toward the Philippines throughout the nation and the wider world was

heated, pitting imperialists against anti-imperialists. Rudyard Kipling, the famous British author

and poet, had lived for many years in India as a child while his father was in the British service.His imperialist childhood undoubtedly influenced his opinion of U.S. intervention in the

Philippines.

Notes: Aguinaldo was captured in March 1901 and declared his allegiance to the United States,

although many people doubted his sincerity. In the war between the United States and the

Filipino nationalists, which lasted until 1902, more than 40,000 Filipinos and 4,000 Americanslost their lives. The United States finally granted Filipino independence on July 4, 1946.

THE WHITE MANS BURDEN

(The United States and the Philippine Islands)

Take up the White Mans burden

Send forth the best ye breedGo 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 Mans 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 anothers profit,

And work anothers gain.

Take up the White Mans burden

The savage wars of peace

Fill full the mouth of Famine

8/3/2019 Poem by Rudyard Kipling

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And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

The end for others sought,

Watch Sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Mans burdenNo 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 Mans 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 ye us from bondage,

Our loved Egyptian night?

Take up the White Mans 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 Mans 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!