The White Man's Burden

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 hope to nought. Take up the White Man's burden-No iron 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, 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 will or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent sullen peoples Shall weigh your God 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.

Although Kipling's poem mixed exhortation to empire with somber warnings of the costs involved, imperialists within the United States understood the phrase "white man's burden" as a characterization for imperialism that justified the policy as a noble enterprise The poem was originally written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, but exchanged for "Recessional"; Kipling changed the text of "Burden" to reflect the subject of American colonization of the Philippines, recently won [ from Spain in the Spanish-American War. At face value it appears to be a rhetorical command to white men to coloniseand rule other nations for the benefit of those people (both the people and the duty may be seen as representing the "burden" of the title). Because of its theme and title, it has become emblematic both of Eurocentric racism and of Western aspirations to dominate the developing [8][9][10] world. A century after its publication, the poem still rouses strong emotions, and can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives On the face of it, the poem conveys a positive view of the idea that "The White Man" (generally accepted to mean the colonial powers (England, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, Russia, and the United States) had a duty to civilize the more brutish and barbaric parts of the world. It begins by describing the colonized Filipinos as "new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child". Although a belief in the virtues of empire was widespread at the time, there were also many dissenters; the publication of the poem caused a flurry of arguments from both sides, most notably from Mark Twain and Henry

James. While Kipling may have intended the piece as a form of satire, much of Kipling's other writing does suggest that he genuinely believed in the "beneficent role" which the introduction of Western ideas could play in lifting non-Western [citation needed] peoples out of poverty and 'ignorance'. Lines 35, and other parts of the poem suggest that it is not just the native people who are held in captivity, but also the "functionaries of empire", who are caught in colonial service and may die while helping other races less fortunate than themselves (hence "burden").

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