"The White Man's Burden"
By , and

Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students and Staff at Marymount University, Tonya Howe
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Sources

New York : S/ S. McClure Co., February 1899Online: HathiTrust, ndThe page images and text for this digital edition have been sourced from the University of Michigan digitized volume of McClure's in HathiTrust.

Editorial Statements

Research informing these annotations draws on publicly-accessible resources, with links provided where possible. Annotations have also included common knowledge, defined as information that can be found in multiple reliable sources. If you notice an error in these annotations, please contact lic.open.anthology@gmail.com.

Original spelling and capitalization is retained, though the long s has been silently modernized and ligatured forms are not encoded.

Hyphenation has not been retained, except where necessary for the sense of the word.

Page breaks have been retained. Catchwords, signatures, and running headers have not.

Materials have been transcribed from and checked against first editions, where possible. See the Sources section for more information.


Citation

Kipling, Rudyard. "The White Man's Burden". Mclure's Magazine, S/ S. McClure Co., February 1899 , Volume 12, Issue 4, pp 290-291 . Literature in Context: An Open Anthology. http://anthology.lib.virginia.edu/work/Kipling/kipling-burden. Accessed: 2024-11-21T11:18:44.172Z
TEST Audio
[TP] 290 McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
VOL. XII. FEBRUARY, 1899. NO. 4.
THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN. By Rudyard Kipling. 1Take up the White Man's burden-- 2Send forth the best ye breed-- 3Go, bind your sons to exile 4To serve your captives' need; 5To wait, in heavy harness 6On fluttered folk and wild-- 7Your new-caught sullen peoples, 8Half devil and half child. 9Take up the White Man's burden-- 10In patience to abide, 11To veil the threat of terror 12And check the show of pride; 13By open speech and simple, 14An hundred times mad plain, 15To seek another's profit 16And work another's gain. 17Take up the White Man's burden-- 18The savage wars of peace-- 19Fill full the mouth of Famine 20And bid the sickness cease; 21And when your goal is nearest 22(The end for others sought) 23Watch sloth and heathen folly 24Bring all your hope to nought. 25Take up the White Man's burden-- 26No iron rule of kings, 27But toil of serf and sweeper-- 28The tale of common things. 29The ports ye shall not enter, 30The roads ye shall not tread, 31Go make them with your living 32And mark them with your dead. 291 33Take up the White Man's burden-- 34And reap his old reward-- 35The blame of those ye better, 36The hate of those ye guard-- 37The cry of hosts ye humour 38(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- 39"Why brought ye us from bondage, 40Our loved Egyptian night?" 41Take up the White Man's burden-- 42Ye dare not stoop to less-- 43Nor call too loud on freedom 44To cloak your weariness. 45By all ye cry or whisper, 46By all ye leave or do, 47The silent sullen peoples 48Shall weigh your God and you. 49Take up the White Man's burden! 50Have done with childish days-- 51The lightly proffered laurel, 52The easy ungrudged praise: 53Comes now, to search your manhood 54Through all the thankless years, 55Cold edged with dear-bought wisdom, 56The judgment of your peers.

Footnotes