Kipling

[Nathan_Bell]

Some of the best poetry written for times of strife. Here is a link to his collected works. Take a few minutes and read a few of them, and see how much , and how little, things have changed in a century of fighting.

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/kipling_ind.html

[Barry in IN]

Thanks.
Of course "If" is great, but my favorite is "Grave of the Hundred Head".

And if you like that one, you might like this if you haven't seen it before:

www.cruffler.com/fiction-September-00.html
www.cruffler.com/fiction-October-00.html
www.cruffler.com/fiction-November-00.html
www.cruffler.com/fiction-August-01.html

[Submariner]

A DEAD STATESMAN

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

[Nathan_Bell]

He hits pretty much all points of life.

[Submariner]

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2655/johnkiplinggravelj2.jpg

John Kipling's last letter to his father is poignant:


Dear F -
Just a hurried line as we start off tonight. The front line trenches are nine miles off from here so it wont be a very long march.

This is THE great effort to break through & end the war.

The guns have been going deafeningly all day, without a single stop.

We have to push through at all costs so we won't have much time in the trenches, which is great luck.

Funny to think one will be in the thick of it tomorrow.

One's first experience of shell fire not in the trenches but in the open.

This is one of the advantages of a Flying Division, you have to keep moving.

We marched 18 miles last night in the pouring wet.

It came down in sheets steadily.

They are staking a tremendous lot on this great advancing movement as if it succeeds the war won't go on for long.

You have no idea what enormous issues depend on the next few days.

This will be my last letter most likely for some time as we won't get any time for writing this next week, but I will try & send Field post cards.

Well so long old dears.

Dear love

John

He was killed two days later. Kipling, having pulled strings to get his son in the army, was wracked with guilt and "the author carried out hundreds of interviews with his late son's comrades, building up a detailed picture of his last moments." Kipling became a prominent member of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (http://www.cwgc.org/default.asp), but according to the linked article, "there is some question if his son's remains (http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3078953) were properly identified.

Shortly thereafter he wrote, "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied."