Rudyard Kipling

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;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child

Classic colonial stereotype: colonized people as simultaneously dangerous (devil) and incompetent (child), requiring white supervision. This wasn't metaphor—it was policy justification.

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—

Savage wars of peace

Oxymoron that names the reality: colonial 'civilization' required military force. The Philippine-American War (1899-1902) killed 200,000+ civilians while claiming to bring progress.

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 hope 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 make 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 ye us from bondage,

Egyptian night

Exodus reference flipped: Israelites asked 'why did you bring us from Egypt to die in the desert?' Kipling predicts colonized peoples will miss their 'bondage'—a staggering claim.

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;
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 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!

Judgment of your peers

'Peers' means other imperial powers, not the colonized. The poem ends asking: will Britain measure up to France, Germany, Belgium in the colonial project?

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Occasion: America's Philippine Problem

CONTEXT Published February 1899 in McClure's Magazine, addressed to the United States after it acquired the Philippines from Spain. The U.S. was debating what to do with its new Pacific colony—Kipling wrote this to argue for permanent occupation.

The poem is recruitment propaganda dressed as poetry. "Send forth the best ye breed" is literal: Kipling wants America to send administrators, engineers, doctors to Manila. "Go bind your sons to exile" acknowledges the personal cost—colonial service meant years away from home, often death from tropical disease. The British Indian Civil Service had 1,000 administrators governing 300 million people; Kipling's father worked in Bombay, and Rudyard spent his early childhood there.

"Your new-caught, sullen peoples" refers specifically to Filipinos who had just fought Spain for independence and now faced American occupation. The Philippine-American War was already underway when this published—Filipino forces under Emilio Aguinaldo were fighting U.S. troops. Kipling frames this resistance as sullenness, not legitimate opposition to conquest.

The Rhetorical Trick: Burden as Sacrifice

Every stanza starts with the imperative "Take up"—this is a command, not a suggestion. The repetition mimics religious liturgy or military orders, seven drumbeats of obligation.

Kipling's core argument: imperialism is thankless work that benefits the colonized, not the colonizer. "To seek another's profit, / And work another's gain"—he claims empire is altruistic. "The blame of those ye better, / The hate of those ye guard" frames colonial subjects as ungrateful children who don't appreciate their betterment.

The economic reality was opposite: colonial extraction made Britain wealthy. India's share of global GDP dropped from 23% to 4% under British rule. But Kipling focuses on the individual colonial administrator—the district officer who builds roads, fights disease, gets no thanks. By zooming in on personal sacrifice, he obscures systemic exploitation.

"Mark them with your dead" isn't metaphor. Tropical disease killed British administrators at high rates. Kipling's own son would die in WWI. The poem trades on real grief to justify empire—your son's death in Burma proves the nobility of the cause.