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The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling

'The White Man's Burden' was first published in 1899. Kipling wrote the poem to encourage the USA to build an empire as the British had done.
Drawing: We see a man with a head like a lion wearing boxing gloves with 'army' and 'navy' written on them. He is much bigger than the people he is roaring and punching towards, who are caricatures of people from Africa and Asia. Below the drawing, it says "British Benevolence. It is painful to be obliged to use force against the weak --Earl Granville in House of Lords."
Cartoon from 1882 with the title 'British Benevolence'. Image: Joseph Keppler, Puck, Library of Congress / Public domain
About the poem

The poem sheds light on how Kipling and many British people regarded their empire. Rather than being exploiters hungry for land and riches they had no claim to, the British believed they were on a mission to civilise the peoples of Africa and Asia. The people whose lands they took were regarded as "half devil and half child" desperately in need of the guidance of white men.

Kipling wrote the poem for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 but ended up presenting a different poem on that occasion. The first time the poem was published was in 1899, during . The poem was meant to inspire the United States to start building an empire.

The White Man's Burden

Take up the White Man's burden –
Send forth the best ye breed –
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild –
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden –
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden –
The savage wars of peace –
Fill full the mouth of famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden –
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper -
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead !

Take up the White Man's burden –
And reap his old reward,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard –
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah slowly !) towards the light:–
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
"Our loved Egyptian night ?"

Take up the White Man's burden –
Ye dare not stoop to less –
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden –
Have done with childish days –
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgement of your peers.

Cartoon: We see Uncle Sam (the United States) and John Bull (The United Kingdom) carrying baskets of people who are caricatures of different ethnicities up a hillside covered in rocks. The rocks have writing on them 'barbarism', 'oppression', 'ignorance', 'vice' and more. At the top is a golden statue with the word 'civilization' above it.
Cartoon from 1899 with the caption "The White Man's Burden – Apologies to Rudyard Kipling". Image: Victor Gilliam / Public domain

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