Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:19am

The Choice

 

The thirty-third in my on-going series on the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. The other posts in the series may be read here, here , here , here, here , here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here , here, here, here , here, here, here , here, here , here , here , here , here,  here, here , here,  here and here.  Like most Brits of his generation, Kipling had ambivalent feelings towards the United States.  He had married an American and had lived with her in Vermont from 1892 to 1896 when the family moved to England.  He found much to admire in the Great Republic and much to criticize.  It could be said that Kipling, the quintessential Englishman, adopted an American attitude of both love, and the freedom to speak his mind about what he perceived to be wrong, as to America.  In any case there was nothing ambivalent about the poem he published in April of 1917 after the US entered the Great War on the side of The Allies:

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT SPEAKS:

  To the Judge of Right and Wrong
With Whom fulfillment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
 Our faith and sacrifice.
  Let Freedom’s land rejoice!
 Our ancient bonds are riven;
Once more to us the eternal choice
Of good or ill is given.
Not at a little cost,
 Hardly by prayer or tears,
Shall we recover the road we lost
In the drugged and doubting years.
  But after the fires and the wrath,
 But after searching and pain,
His Mercy opens us a path
To live with ourselves again.
  In the Gates of Death rejoice!
 We see and hold the good—
Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice
For Freedom’s brotherhood.
  Then praise the Lord Most High
Whose Strength hath saved us whole,
Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die
And not the living Soul!

The last two stanzas were added to the poem in 1919, after it was clear the blood price that America paid for its participation.  It is interesting that Kipling understood that America entered into the war as a crusade and not simply a conflict fought for lesser reasons.  That fact would lead to great disillusionment after it became clear that the War to End War did no such thing, but it is important that in the United States  this was said, and believed, by the majority of Americans a century ago.
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Mary De Voe
Thursday, July 27, AD 2017 2:47pm

God gave all persons free will and a rational soul. God will force no person against his will into heaven.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, July 27, AD 2017 3:05pm

” America entered into the war as a crusade ” ?? I don’t know the history of this time very well. Was that “crusade” against the Communism then growing.
Also I think the potential threat of Communism in Mexico and their interest in South West USA was part of the impetus.
(La Raza) still thinks that is an open possibility. A wall would be a big set back for them!

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