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. 

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 !) towards 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 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 judgement of your peers.

    Rudyard Kipling

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