Hi all;

THis is for American History class. I need to analyze the poem "White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling, and I'm having a hard time understanding it. I get that it has to do with American imperialism, but that's from my course and not the poem. Can someone help?

Thank-you


The White Man's Burden
By: Rudyard Kipling

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 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 ye shall not enter,
The roads ye 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 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 cloke (1) 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, (2)
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!

Kipling is saying that the 'white man's burden' is to rule the world, because the non-white people are not competent to do so. At the time he wrote this, Britain had colonies in India, Africa, the Pacific Islands, etc.

He thinks that we Americans are being lazy in having a non-interference policy.

pam

You might try using our search feature. I'm sure the poem has been discussed on this forum before:

<[www.emule.com] />

Les

The subtitle to the poem is The United States and the Philippine Islands.

The poem is addressed to America as she was taking over government of the Philippines and warning her of what it probably would entail.