Kipling: A Wise Realist Speaks From The Past

Born on this day in 1865, the British writer, Rudyard Kipling, was a product of England and India. He infused his writing with the essence of Victorian times and the adventure of empire. Eighty years after his death he remains a popular writer, a beacon of reason and rhetoric, among political centrists and conservatives. His works for children, including the Jungle Books and Just So Stories, have never lost their popularity among young readers. It is so unfortunate that cultural relativism over the last forty years has sadly pushed Kipling into literary obscurity in most of academia. Although he may be out of fashion he still reaches across a century into an age of moral relativism and leftist ideological fantasy to remind us that ancient virtues and wisdom will hold us accountable in the end.

Kipling and his wife spent about five years living at Bliss Cottage near Brattleboro, Vermont, just prior to the height of his career. In was in this setting that he produced some of his most memorable work, including the Jungle Books, a short story collection entitled The Day's Work, his novel Captain's Courageous, and a volume of poetry, The Seven Seas.

Our political and cultural slide to the left in the last few decades has brought Kipling's appreciation of realism to the fore. One of his most quoted poems that speaks to the necessity for reason and the folly of cultural relativism is "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." Many readers have inquired about the poem since it appeared in this blog a few years ago. It's become a tradition of sorts to commemorate Kipling's birthday by reposting it each year. It is a power statement for our time.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!