Posted on 07/01/2015 11:10:54 PM PDT by No One Special
I kind of like the Wrath of the Awakened Saxon. Someday, that might come true also.
"The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
--Yeats, The Second Coming.
Mark Twain spent some time with Rudyard Kipling and stated:
“Mr. Kipling knows everything any man can ever know and I know all the rest.”
bump
Thanks for posting. If only Kipling were to become popular again so many of our problems would be solved
Excellent post, thank you.
To imagine the extent of our changed world, remember that Mr Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, a year after Theodore Roosevelt’s Peace Prize.
Great article! Thanks for posting! I’ve read it before or something very similar. The western world was built on Biblical truth, at least to some degree. As we in the west abandon these truths the pattern seems to repeat itself in each country that has tried to move into socialism. America is only slightly behind Britain but catching up fast. When America goes, that will surely be the death of the west. The Jewish view of history and prophecy is pattern with an ultimate fulfillment (many antichrists but one ultimate leader that will be inhabited by Satan himself). What Kipling seemed to believe was that the Biblical truths would resurface and be returned to after mankind looks for life in this world on his terms apart from God. It’s true there were religious revivals that did tend to help return culture back to its Biblical roots but in both our countries it never regained the ascendancy it once held. It seems to be more of a spiraling down to a very bitter end. There will be no return this time at all, in my opinion. We seem to be headed for the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. Kipling is correct in that Truth will ultimately prevail when the King of kings returns and establishes His Kingdom that will never end and destroy the enemies of God. This time, that’s what it will take.
Thanks for sharing this. I visited with friends who stayed at the Kipling House in Dummerston, VT last winter. We marveled at the collection of books, the wild architecture and the man cave in the attic. To say that his windows offered a great view is an understatement.
I love this poem.
The only thing that this analysis seems to lack (IMNSHO) is the easy quotation of Scripture which comes naturally to both Kipling AND the producers of the copybook. “The Wages of Sin” is from Romans 6, and in the poem “The dog returns to his vomit and the sow to the mire” is from 2 Peter 2.
There was a time when both British and American English were peppered with Scripture so liberally that it was often hard to distinguish between quotations and innate wisdom.
This continued up till only recently, as even in the beat poetry of the 50’s and Dylan’s long, rambling songs of the 60’s, one can easily pick out large amounts of Bible quotes.
I think texting, tweeting, and emoticons have brought our language to complete destruction and thus, total control by the “Powers That Be”. If one can’t say it in 167 characters, then it is not worth saying!
Word!
Thanks for sharing.
And Peter, in turn, was quoting Proverbs ... (gotta look it up) ... Proverbs 26:11
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins”
“The “Brave New World” was the phrase chosen by Aldous Huxley for the title of his famous 1932 novel about a dystopian future society based on what he knew of Stalinist Communism. This was exactly what Kipling meant when he coined the phrase!”
Kipling and Huxley used a line from Shakespeare play, “The Tempest” as the title of his book. It was spoken by Miranda on seeing men (Other than her father) for the first time.
Miranda:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!
Prospero:
‘Tis new to thee.
The Tempest Act 5, scene 1, 181–184
Now Prospero’s reply is rather bland, but Kipling’s point is that people were charmed by the newness of Socialism and the destruction of traditional morals, the “Brave new world,” but they would soon find that the hackneyed old wisdom was preferable to the destruction that the novelty that freedom and new social experimentation wrecked in their lives.
Good Post!
What a great point. Thank you so much.
“Feminian Sandstones”
Kipling’s definition of feminism and the origins of same...but I suspect the author didn’t want to go there!
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor 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.”
Eve tempted by Satan to become like the gods, the last line of that Stanza defines “Feminian Sandstone”...the wages of which lead to death!
Frankly the lines, "presently word would come that a tribe had been wiped off its ice field, or the lights had gone out in Rome," has as much power as any in literature. It perfectly captures the inevitability of reality--of a day of reckoning for human folly--whether to the simple or complex varieties of human species.
The writing is clearly on the wall. We will either wake up America now, or stand impotent as the lights go out.
Sounds good to me. Probably there’s some quality of sandstone he was thinking of also
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