A Survey of Rudyard Kipling's Poetry Quiz

Answer: A man

"If" was written in the 1890s as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson, a Scottish colonial politician. It begins, "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you" and continues with a series of "If"s, concluding:

"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!"

Answer: Gunga Din

"Gunga Din" was written in 1890 and is narrated from the point of view of an English colonial solider in India. It tells of Gunga Din, an Indian water carrier who saves the soldier's life and is then shot and killed. The solider then regrets the way he abused the servant in the past and realizes Gunga Din is the better man.

Answer: Copybook Headings

"As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire..."

"The Gods of the Copybook Headings" was first published on October 26, 1919 in the London "Sunday Pictorial." Copybook headings were moral sayings that encouraged wisdom and virtue and good character. British school-children in the 19th century copied them out to practice their handwriting and receive a character education. The poem pits tradition against modernity, the "Gods of the Copybook Headings," who for Kipling represent "age-old, unfashionable wisdom," against "the Gods of the Market-Place" and progressivism. The old truths will "outlast them all," the poet says.

Answer: Mandalay

"The Highway Man" is by Alfred Noyes.

"Mandalay" is written in the voice of a Cockney solider in London as he reflects back on the time he had a Burmese girlfriend in colonial Burma and felt more free. It was included in the 1892 volume "Barrack-Room Ballads, and Other Verses." American composer and songwriter Oley Speaks used it to create his song "On the Road to Mandalay."

Answer: Protection money

"Weregild" is blood money paid in compensation to a family for the damage when a man's life is taken. "Dane-geld" is protection money that was paid to Viking raiders to keep a land from being pillaged. Kipling warns against this practice in his poem "Dane-geld," which he published in his 1911 book "A School History of England" (written with C.R.L. Fletcher). Kipling insists that "once you have paid him the Danegeld / You never get rid of the Dane."

Answer: Danny Deever

"Danny Deever" first appeared in the "Scots Observer" on February 22, 1890 and was later included in Kipling's 1892 collection "Barrack-Room Ballads." The ballad depicts the execution of a British soldier who was convicted of murder in colonial India and is told from the point of view of his regiment who watches him hang. The poem consists primarily of dialogue between the soldiers and concludes:

"For they're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear the quickstep play,
The Regiment's in column, an' they're marchin' us away;
Ho! the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want their beer to-day,
After hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'!"

Answer: Queen Victoria

On September 23. 1896, Queen Victoria became the longest-reigning monarch in British history. On June 22, 1897, she held her Diamond Jubilee, which celebrate the 60th year of her reign and was made a festival for the British Empire. Kipling wrote and published "Recessional" toward the end of the Jubilee celebrations. It appeared in "The Times" on July 17, 1897 and served as a sort of afterword to the celebrations.

The poem begins:

"God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine-
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!"

Answer: Lord Tennyson

Kipling wrote "The Last of the Light Brigade" In 1890, thirty-six years after Tennyson's famous poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade." It depicts the visit of twenty survivors of the Battle of Balaclava to and eighty-year-old Tennyson. The soldiers gently scold Tennyson for not writing a sequel to expose the terrible way England was treating its elderly veterans. It begins:

"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."

Answer: Tommy

Tommy Atkins was a slang term used to refer to a common British soldier. Written in 1890, "Tommy" was later included in Kipling's "Barrack-Room Ballads" collection in 1892. The poem paints a sympathetic portrait of the ordinary British soldier and shows the difference in the treatment soldiers receive at times of peace compared to times of war:

"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..."

Answer: A Beja warrior in the Mahdist War

The term "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" was used by 19th century British colonial soldiers to refer to the Beja warriors who supported the Sudanese Mahdi in the Mahdist War. The poem "Fuzzy-Wuzzy," included in Kipling's 1892 collection, depicts the admiration of a common British soldier for the Hadendoa warriors, who were a subdivision of the Beja:

"We've fought with many men acrost the seas,
An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:
The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot."

Answer: female

Kipling's 1911 poem "The Female of the Species is More Deadly Than the Male" has lent a phrase to the English language that has been used repeatedly since as the title of books and songs and as an adage. The poem begins by showing how various female animals are deadlier than male animals and suggested that the female is so fierce because she is formed for the purpose of motherhood, which requires a great determination:

"But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male."

Answer: My Boy Jack

The poem was written for Jack Cornwell, who was 16 years old when he received the Victoria Cross. The 1916 Battle of Jutland was fought between the Imperial German Navy and the British Royal Navy. The poem uses natural imagery to depict the grief felt by a parent over the loss of a child in war. Rudyard Kipling had a son named Jon who died at the Battle of Loos in 1915, and the poem may echo his own grief as well. It begins:

"'Have you news of my boy Jack?'
Not this tide.
'When d'you think that he'll come back?'
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide."

Answer: west

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!"

These are the opening lines to Rudyard Kipling's 1889 poem "The Ballad of East and West." In the ballad, an Afghan horse-thief named Kamal steals a prize bay mare, and the Colonel's son follows him into enemy territory. The poem depicts how the two come to respect each other's chivalry and courage.

Answer: Boots

The poem continues:

"(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up and down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!"

First published in 1903 in Kipling's collection "The Five Nations," this poem was selected by T.S. Eliot for his 1941 anthology "A Choice of Kipling's Verse."

Answer: who

The poem, "Six Honest Serving Men" is an affectionate tribute to an inquisitive child and concludes:

"She sends em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes
One million Hows, Two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!"