There are several reasons for our not knowing Kipling’s poems so well as we think we do. When a man is primarily known as a writer of prose fiction we are inclined – and usually, I think, justly – to regard his verse as a by-product. I am, I confess, always doubtful whether any man can so divide himself as to be able to make the most of two such very different forms of expression as poetry and imaginative prose. I am willing to pay due respect, for instance, to the poetry of George Meredith, of Thomas Hardy, of D. H. Lawrence as part of their œuvre, without conceding that it is as good as it might have been [sic!] had they chosen to dedicate their whole lives to that form of art. If I make an exception in the case of Kipling, it is not because I think he succeeded in making the division successfully, but because I think that, for reasons which it will be partly the purpose of this essay to put forward, his verse and his prose are inseparable; that we must finally judge him, not separately as a poet and as a writer of prose fiction, but as the inventor of a mixed form.
T. S. ELIOT: from A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (Faber and Faber, 1941)
Kipling was born in India, the son of John Lockwood Kipling, author and illustrator of Beast and Man in India (1891), and Alice Kipling, the sister-in-law of Burne-Jones. After an unhappy childhood in England (cf. the short story ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’), he attended the United Services College, Westward Ho!, and then worked from 1882 to 1889 as a journalist in India, where many of his early poems and stories first appeared in local newspapers. He came to London in 1889; following the publication of many of his most famous Barrack-Room Ballads in Henley’s Scots Observer, he became a celebrity overnight. After a spell in Vermont, America (he had married Caroline Balestier, sister of his American agent), he returned to England, lived in Rottingdean for five years, then settled during 1902 in Sussex at ‘Bateman’s’, the country house now owned by the National Trust. He visited South Africa during the Boer War, experiencing warfare at first hand. The death of his 18-year-old son John at the Battle of Loos in 1915 left an indelible mark on the poet, who expressed his grief in ‘My boy Jack’, one of his most moving poems. As his reputation grew (he was widely regarded as the unofficial poet laureate), he was offered many honours and became the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1907. Though greatly admired by T. S. Eliot, who published A Choice of Kipling’s Verse, James and Yeats, Kipling has never quite shaken off the charge of jingoism by anti-imperialists and others, although such later stories as ‘Mary Postgate’, ‘The Gardener’, ‘The Wish House’ and ‘A Madonna of the Trenches’ have nothing to do with Empire. Perhaps his greatest success were the poems and tales he wrote for children.
The Just So Stories are a case in point. There is an eyewitness account by his cousin of the gestation of these delightful works: ‘The Just So Stories’, she writes, ‘are a poor thing in print compared with the fun of hearing them told in Cousin Ruddy’s deep unhesitating voice. There was an inimitable cadence, an emphasis of certain words, an exaggeration of certain phrases, a kind of intoning here and there which made his telling unforgettable.’ And Kipling’s wife tells us in her diaries that her husband would ask her to find a hymn tune, whereupon he would drum it out on his fingers, hum it over until he found the words to match. Rhythm was a key, as T. S. Eliot remarked in a discussion of ‘Danny Deever’, printed in his Introduction to A Choice of Kipling’s Verse:
One of the most interesting exercises in the combination of heavy beat and variation of pace is found in ‘Danny Deever’, a poem which is technically (as well as in content) remarkable. The regular recurrence of the same end-words, which gain immensely by imperfect rhyme (parade and said) gives the feeling of marching feet and the movement of men in disciplined formation – in a unity of movement which enhances the horror of the occasion and the sickness which seizes the men as individuals; and the slightly quickened pace of the final lines marks the change in movement and in music.
This collection of twelve poems from Kipling’s Just So Stories was composed by Sir Edward German in 1903, one year after the stories had been chosen as the ‘Children’s Book of the Year’. Later in his life, German agreed to have the work arranged for full chorus and orchestra – and this was eventually completed by Dr Gordon Jacob in 1947.
When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you aren’t waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you haven’t guessed)
You’re ‘Fifty North and Forty West!’
(How the Whale Got Its Throat)
The Camel’s hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the Zoo;
But uglier yet is the hump we get
From having too little to do.
Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo,
We get the hump –
Cameelious hump –
The hump that is black and blue!
We climb out of bed with a frouzly head
And a snarly-yarly voice.
We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl
At our bath and our boots and our toys;
And there ought to be a corner for me
(And I know there is one for you)
When we get the hump –
Cameelious hump –
The hump that is black and blue!
The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
And dig till you gently perspire;
And then you will find that the sun and the wind,
And the Djinn of the Garden too,
Have lifted the hump –
The horrible hump –
The hump that is black and blue!
I get it as well as you-oo-oo –
If I haven’t enough to do-oo-oo!
We all get hump –
Cameelious hump –
Kiddies and grown-ups too!
(How the Camel Got Its Hump)
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views.
I know a person small –
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends ’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes –
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
(The Elephant’s Child)
I am the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in most wise tones,
‘Let us melt into the landscape – just us two by our lones.’
People have come – in a carriage – calling. But Mummy is there …
Yes, I can go if you take me – Nurse says she don’t care.
Let’s go up to the pig-styes and sit on the farmyard rails!
Let’s say things to the bunnies, and watch ’em skitter their tails!
Let’s – oh, anything, daddy, so long as it’s you and me,
And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea!
Here’s your boots (I’ve brought ’em), and here’s your cap and stick,
And here’s your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out of it – quick!
(How the Leopard Got Its Spots)
I’ve never sailed the Amazon,
I’ve never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdalena,
They can go there when they will!
Yes, weekly from Southampton,
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down – roll down to Rio!).
And I’d like to roll to Rio
Some day before I’m old!
I’ve never seen a Jaguar,
Nor yet an Armadill-
o dilloing in his armour,
And I s’pose I never will,
These wonders to behold –
Roll down – roll down to Rio –
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio
Some day before I’m old!
(The Beginning of the Armadilloes)
‘What are the bugles blowin’ for?’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘To turn you out, to turn you out,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
‘What makes you look so white, so white?’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘I’m dreadin’ what I’ve got to watch,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
For they’re hangin’ Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play,
The Regiment’s in ’ollow square – they’re hangin’ him to-day;
They’ve taken of his buttons off an’ cut his stripes away,
An’ they’re hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’.
‘What makes the rear-rank breathe so ’ard?’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘It’s bitter cold, it’s bitter cold,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
‘What makes that front-rank man fall down?’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘A touch o’ sun, a touch o’ sun,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
They are hangin’ Danny Deever, they are marchin’ of ’im round,
They ’ave ’alted Danny Deever by ’is coffin on the ground;
An’ ’e’ll swing in ’arf a minute for a sneakin’ shootin’ hound –
O they’re hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’!
‘’Is cot was right-’and cot to mine,’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘’E’s sleepin’ out an’ far to-night,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
‘I’ve drunk ’is beer a score o’ times,’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘’E’s drinkin’ bitter beer alone,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
They are hangin’ Danny Deever, you must mark ’im to ’is place,
For ’e shot a comrade sleepin’ – you must look ’im in the face;
Nine ’undred of ’is country an’ the Regiment’s disgrace,
While they’re hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’.
‘What’s that so black agin the sun?’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘It’s Danny fightin’ ’ard for life,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
‘What’s that that whimpers over’ead?’ said Files-on-Parade.
‘It’s Danny’s soul that’s passin’ now,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.
For they’ve done with Danny Deever, you can ’ear the quickstep play,
The Regiment’s in column, an’ they’re marchin’ us away;
Ho! the young recruits are shakin’, an’ they’ll want their beer to-day,
After hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’!
(Grainger)
The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the snow –
They beg for coffee and sugar; they go where the white men go.
The People of the Western Ice, they learn to steal and fight:
They sell their furs to the trading-post: they sell their soul to the white.
The People of the Southern ice, they trade with the whaler’s crew;
Their women have many ribbons, but their tents are torn and few.
But the People of the Elder Ice, beyond the white man’s ken –
Their spears are made of the narwhal horn3, and they are the last of the Men!