Kipling, "The White Man's Burden"

	The White Man’s Burden
	Take up the White Man’s burden —
	Send forth the best ye breed —
	Go, bind your sons to exile
	To serve your captives’ need;
5	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 —
10	In patience to abide,°	wait
	To veil the threat of terror
	And check the show of pride;
	By open speech and simple,
	An hundred times mad plain,
15	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
20	And bid the sickness cease;
	And when your goal is nearest
	(The end for others sought)
	Watch sloth° and heathen folly	laziness
	Bring all your hope to nought.°	nothing

25	Take up the White Man’s burden —
	No iron rule of kings,
	But toil of serf° and sweeper —	peasant
	The tale of common things.
	The ports ye shall not enter,
30	The roads ye shall not tread,
	Go make them with your living
	And mark them with your dead.

	Take up the White Man’s burden —
	And reap his old reward —
35	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,°	slavery
40	Our loved Egyptian night?”

	Take up the White Man’s burden —
	Ye dare not stoop to less —
	Nor call too loud on freedom
	To cloak your weariness.
45	By all ye cry or whisper,
	By all ye leave or do,
	The silent sullen° peoples	gloomy
	Shall weigh your God and you.

	Take up the White Man’s burden!
50	Have done with childish days —
	The lightly proffered° laurel,°	offered — honor
	The easy ungrudged praise:
	Comes now, to search your manhood
	Through all the thankless years,
55	Cold edged with dear-bought wisdom,
	The judgment of your peers.

The White Man’s Burden

Rudyard Kipling

Edited by Jack Lynch

The White Man’s Burden

Notes