| Spring 2000 | Volume II, Issue I |
|
THOUGHTS ON RUDYARD KIPLING The aching heart that seldom slurs a beat The cool head weighing what the heart desires The measuring eye that guides the hands and feet The soul unbroken when the body tires. These things our weary world requires For more than superfluities of wit Wherefore I pray you sons of generous sires Be fit, be fit for honor's sake be fit. |
|
This was written by Rudyard Kipling, who grew up in India at the end of the nineteenth century. He was fascinated with the military and wrestled with the concepts of honor, courage, and discipline. While in India he self-published Barrack Room Ballads (1892) and even in that early work you can see him struggling with trying to reconcile the mythology of glory and sacrifice for Britain with the reality of human suffering and death in battle. It was tough to be a thinking Brit. In the final poem of Barrack Room Ballads, Kipling wrote of the soldier who had, "done his work, held his peace, and had no fear to die." Kipling became prolific and successful as a writer and in 1907 was awarded the Nobel Prize. But all the recognition and awards turned to dust when his beloved son John was killed in the First World War. The futility of war and the loss of his son overwhelmed him. He became one of "The Broken Men", about whom he wrote in 1902. His son's remains were never found despite an intensive search, but last year a French farmer uncovered his dogtags as he worked in the fields. Kipling came to Victoria for a while and we have a street named after him. I have a signed edition of his Collected Verse, published in 1912. He was a product of his times and always seems to write in the masculine gender but the wisdom of his poem "If" is universal. Lines from "If" are the last things players see before entering the Center Court at Wimbledon. |
|
IF If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make your dreams your master If you can think - and not make your thoughts your aim If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools. Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' 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! Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) |
|
There's another Kipling quote that often comes to mind when I'm running, "I run because I like it, through the broad, bright land." There's no better reason to run. |
|
|
|
| Contact Information |
|
Phone: (250) 721-6997 Fax: (250) 721-6929 Email: mcollis@speakwell.com |
 newsletter for wellness |
Copyright © 2000 PH3 Services Corp. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.