Written in 1914, this poem highlights one of Kipling’s major blind-spots. Kipling and his contemporaries’ jingoist support for the first of the great European follies, due to their attachment to the archaic Napoleonic era balance of power doctrine, led directly to the needless destruction of an entire generation of young men, the weakening and eventual collapse of their beloved British Empire, and the second great European folly and the destruction of Western Civilization as a whole. However, if we read this poem as a call to arms based on Britain’s current situation instead of WWI anti-German propaganda, then it actually is more fitting now than a hundred years ago when it was originally written.
For all we have and are,
For all our children’s fate,
Stand up and take the war.
The Hun is at the gate!
Our world has passed away,
In wantonness o’erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone!
Though all we knew depart,
The old Commandments stand: –
“In courage keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand.”Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old: –
“No law except the Sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled.”
Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.Comfort, content, delight,
The ages’ slow-bought gain,
They shrivelled in a night.
Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewed and re-renewed.
Though all we made depart,
The old Commandments stand: –
“In patience keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand.”No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all –
One life for each to give.
What stands if Freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?
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