Extracts from Poetry
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Poetry’
Rudyard Kipling’s much-loved verses are a reflection on what it is that builds real character.
First published in Rewards and Fairies (1910), the verses below followed a story about George Washington’s principles of leadership, though Kipling tells us that the initial inspiration for the poem had been his friend Storr Jameson, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in 1904-8. ‘If...’ quickly became, as it has remained ever since, one of the nation’s favourites.
Kipling borrowed from the Greek Independence movement to give thanks for the end of the Great War.
Kipling’s poem, published at the end of the Great War in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ on October 17, 1918, is a verse-paraphrase of the Greek National Anthem. The original was composed by Dionýsios Solomós in 1823, and ran to 158 verses.
John of Gaunt watches in despair as his country is milked for its wealth and shared out among the king’s favourites.
It is 1399, and for two years King Richard II has (in addition to legalised murder) been levying extortionate rents on the property of his opponents, and handing out grace-and-favour homes to his cronies. As John of Gaunt lies dying, he charges his nephew with being ‘landlord of England, not king’.
The prospect of facing daunting odds made his cousin quail, but Henry V acted like a true King.
The centrepiece of William Shakespeare’s play Henry V (?1599) is the Battle of Agincourt on October 25th, 1415, when Henry V clashed with the Dauphin (heir to the French crown) in a winner-takes-all struggle for England’s estates in France. That morning, an edgy Duke of Westmoreland regrets not bringing more men from England; but his cousin, King Henry, will have none of such talk.
Brutus tells Cassius to act while everything is going his way, or be left with nothing but regrets.
Brutus, Caesar’s assassin, is urging Cassius to march on Philippi to meet Octavius (Octavian) and Anthony in the struggle for power in Rome. Cassius is reluctant, but Brutus argues that it must be now or never.