Do you like Kipling?

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[jobycom]

1. I don't know, I've never kipled.

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20. YAY! Jobycom was first one in with the right answer.

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[Wetzelbill]

2. it's really good to start fires....oh wait, that's kindling, my bad... nt

[Swede]

3. Kipling and boiled eggs for breakfast!

Toast and marmalade and coffee. Thanks.

[sundog]

4. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was my hero!

:bounce:

[Gildor Inglorion]

8. I always identified with Chuchundra the muskrat...

afraid to come out into the middle of the floor.
Poor thing.

:scared:

[sundog]

11. the cobras gave me a life long fear of snakes

but rikki, of course, kills the muthafuckas :7

[Gildor Inglorion]

12. O bravest little mongoose of all!

I hated Nag and Nagania...I'm still horrified of snakes, even harmless ones.

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. I need to read that sometime!

[Gildor Inglorion]

5. Why, you NAUGHTY boy! I've never been kippled....

but if you're volunteering, I just might consider it.
:evilgrin:

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. I had to memorize "If" in 7th grade...

I loved that poem.

"If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you...."

FSC

[pscot]

7. I Kippled frequently

in my youth. I still do from time to time. Kim is a great boys book, and the poetry still rings, if you don't mind a bit of tub-thumping for the Empire.

[Gildor Inglorion]

10. He got over it in a hurry when his son died in WWI...

"If they ask you why you died, say 'because our fathers lied.'" Ain't it the truth?

[AVulgarianHue]

9. Who is kipling?...

Wish the kipling would stop..there is all this kipple to sweep up.

[Arkana]

13. Don't know. *spit* Ain't never kippled afore.

[HawkerHurricane]

14. TOMMY

TOMMY
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)



I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

[HawkerHurricane]

17. Now, Tommy gets me going...

but the Last of the Light Brigade is what I see now.

The Last of the Light Brigade
1891
There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o'the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made-"
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. Nothing's changed here in the UK.

I wonder Blair has the gall to attend Cenotaph memorials.

Reading these posts dampens my mirth somewhat. That normally hilarious quote from the French general loses something in the mood I'm in now. I mean when he saw the charge of then Light Brigade and gasped... "Eet ees magnificent... but eet ees not warrrr!"

[HawkerHurricane]

29. I'm reminded of 'A Soldier and Sailor, too!'

"But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,"

HMS Birkenhead, a British troop ship, struck a rock off the coast of South Africa in 1852. With only 3 operational life boats, only women and children (and the sailors needed to operate the boats) could be saved. Fearing that the British soldiers on board (several hundred) would attempt to force there way onto the lifeboats, swamping them, they were ordered into ranks, where they stayed as the lifeboats headed to safety and the ship sank... Not a man broke ranks until the order was given. Most of the soldiers would drown, but all the women and children were saved.
The Kaiser of Prussia was so impressed at this story of bravery and discipline, he ordered a account translated into German and read to all of his soldiers.

Our soldiers, brave and disciplined, are being wasted for no good purpose. And they stand there and take it. And Bush the Lesser doesn't have the balls to talk to a soldiers mother.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. I've had these lines running through my head, lately, for some reason...

(Mostly, I think, because I was just reading about General Elphinstone's disastrous retreat from Kabul)


When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

[HawkerHurricane]

30. Macdonough's Song

"As easy as A B C"--A Diversity of Creatures"
Whether the State can loose and bind
In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
Before or after the birth--
These are matters of high concern
Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
Endeth in Holy War.

Whether The People be led by The Lord,
Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
Or cheaper to die by vote--
These are things we have dealt with once,
(And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King--
Or Holy People's Will--
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
Saying --after--me:--

Once there was The People--Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain!
Once there was The People--it shall never be again!

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. Chilling, that is...

set it to music and it could replace the Star Spangled Banner. Kipling may have beat the drum for the British lion, but in his way he seems to've seen as much as Jack London (the only Victorian writer I think he can be fairly compared to, in most respects, for all that London wasn't known as a poet).

[In_The_Wind]

15. Rudyard Kipling

" the Moon of New Talk, who splashed who her light full on rock and pool, slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a million leaves ............




yes, I like Kipling.

[Tom Kitten]

16. mixed

he was a classic story teller (I also loved Rikki Tikki Tavi) but he was a product of his times, I mean really racist...He hung out in Oregon for awhile and wrote about the long gone canneries at Rooster Rock manned by the infernal Chinese laborers...

[khashka]

18. Depends who I'm Kipling with...

Khash.

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. Apologies everyone - last night,l right after I posted this thread,

my Internet went down and didn't come back until just a little bit ago.

So I wasn't able to play along.

Apologies!

[AVulgarianHue]

22. The internet changed to kipple

[sundog]

23. we acksept your appoligies

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26. Are you drunk, Sundog?

:P

:hi:

[Trigger Hippie]

25. Sure I'll try anything once.

[SOteric]

28. Some of it, yes, though

a lot of Kipling is tastelessly Imperialistic and takes on a patronising tone toward those of any race but WASP. Some have accused Kipling and his work of being racist, but I don't see that.

Parsed through the filter of the times in which he lived and wrote it more condescending than outright racist.

Still, he did have a flare for lyric poetry.

I found George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" to have more depth and sensitivity, and he wrote some similar subject matter during the same relative time period.

[HawkerHurricane]

31. Funny thing is...

his view was the LIBERAL one of it's time.

He believed that the Better Races (of which the British were the very best) had a duty to educate and guide the Lesser Races until they were up to the level of thier betters...
(arrogant, yes)

As opposed the the CONSERVATIVE view...

The Better Races deserve to be on top, will always be on top, and the Lessers had better just get used to it, because that is thier place and it will never change.