The Years Between

by Rudyard Kipling

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Genres: Poetry, 20th Century

106 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was a journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.

Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."

Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success than before. On the night of 12 January 1936, Kipling suffered a haemorrhage in his small intestine. He underwent surgery, but died less than a week later on 18 January 1936 at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer. Kipling's death had in fact previously been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally managed to include my favourite poem!! As far as poetry goes it's good stuff! Kipling has a nice sparse writing style but be prepared for poems about war, life, death and god. Also nice is the fact that his poems rhyme (call me old fashioned but I prefer my poems to rhyme). Moving stuff.

For All We Have and Are

For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,
Stand up and meet the war.
The Hun is at the gate!
Our world has passed away
In wantonness o'erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone.

Though all we knew depart,
The old commandments stand:
"In courage keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand."

Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old:
"No law except the sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled,"
Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight
The ages' slow-bought gain
They shrivelled in a night,
Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewd and re-renewed.

Though all we made depart,
The old commandments stand:
"In patience keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all
For each one life to give.
Who stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you would expect from a collection first published in 1919 by such a fierce patriot as Rudyard Kipling, thoughts and images of WWI dominate these poems, even when they are not directly about it.

Of those poems specifically about the Great War, 'For All We Have as Are' is pure, jingoistic doggerel:

'For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,
Stand up and take the war,
The Hun is at the gate!'

There are also poems about Jutland ('The Verdict'), the dead at 'Mesopotamia' and the 'men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,' In 'Gethsemane' the garden where Christ was betrayed is transported to Picardy.

His list of Epithets contained one called 'Bombed in London':

'On land and sea I strove with anxious care
To escape conscription. It was in the air!'

In the last poem, named 'Justice' and written at the end of war in Oct 1918, Kipling left little doubt about the approach that the Allies needed to take with the 'Evil Incarnate' of the German state:

'That neither schools nor priests,
Nor Kings may build again
A people with the heart of beasts
Made wise concerning men.
Whereby our dead shall sleep
In honour, unbetrayed,
And we in faith and honour keep
That peace for which they paid.'

Kipling had the Old Testament much on his mind at this time too, with poems referencing 'Zion', the Witch of Endor, 'The Sons of Martha,' the story of Gehazi and Naaman from the Books of Kings, and Lilith.

I never realised that Kipling effectively coined the phrase The Female of the Species is Deadlier Than the Male, apparently he did though, even if the refrain from his poem of 1911 put it slightly differently:

'When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.'

The explanation for this seemingly counter-intuitive phrase is motherhood., the examples Kipling conjured up from the animal kingdom certainly (queue irresistible pun) bear this out. However, just three years before the outbreak of WWI it seems silly to claim that when it came to relations between men,

'Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.'

Millions of grieving wives and mother's would soon be disagreeing with that.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a big poetry reader but must say I enjoyed this book. Yes Kipling is a bit jingoistic but he also was a product of his times. There are some famous poems in this book including ‘My Boy Jack’ and ‘The Female Of The Species’ with the famous line ‘For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.’ The epitaphs are also very poignant.

[Amy K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sure, Kipling is problematic as a voice of empire, though he is just as often disdainful, sly, and backhanded about that Empire, particularly for how it treats the common person, but there is something brilliant in the deceptiveness of his rhyme, which invites you to mistake it for a children’s singsong verse and then guts you with some soul-withering, essential truth.

[Le Maistre Chat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of poems written in the Edwardian Era and World War I. A lot of it is just OK, but "The Female of the Species" is famous. "The City of Brass" is an interesting one with similar meter and didacticism on sweeping social issues. I thought "The Benefactors", about military technology since the Paleolithic, had the best rhythm and interesting subject.

[Chris Purser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the poems in this short collection.

[pritimoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice collection of war poems, but many of them didn't strike me that much like his other poems.

[David Highton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag of prose writings