The White Man’s Burden – Poem About The Phil-Am War

The White Man’s Burden – Poem About The Phil-Am War

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN – In this topic, we will now know about a poem about the Philippine-American war called The White Man’s Burden.

THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

It is a poem written by English journarlisy Rudyard Kipling.

This was originally written in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. However, this was replaced with the sombre poem Recessional, which was also written by Kipling.

The poem was eventually rewritten in order to endorse the colonisation and annexation of the United States to the Islands of the Philippines.

Kipling strongly urges Americans to take up the enterprise of imperialism and at the same time, warns about the personal costs faced, endured, and paid in building.

American imperialists understood the phrase in order to justify that the imperial conquest is a mission of civilization. The poem itself provoked accusations of advocacy of racism intrinsic to the idea that the Westerners delivers civilization to non-whites via industrialization.

The Poem

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 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 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 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 profferred 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!

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