Moon Of Other Days M. M. Kaye's Kipling favourite Verses

by Rudyard Kipling, George Sharp (Illustrator)

Book by Rudyard Kipling

162 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1988

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

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

…the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!

This is a very personal collection of Kipling’s poetry. Many of the poems are her father’s or her husband’s favorites and the rest are her own favorites. Most of the poems include her own notes in pastel blue about why she chose that poem, or what the terminology means. Kaye was born and raised in India during the period after Kipling had left and was writing; her father served in the British Raj approximately contemporary with Kipling..

Kipling comes from a different time, a different country, and an alien world. But his poetry also addresses timeless problems that, with different terminology, we still face today.

The collection contains many of Kipling’s famous works, such as “The Dane-Geld” and “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” (among the famous it doesn’t include is “If”). In the notes for Dane-Geld, Kaye writes:

We need to remember this, in these days of hi-jackers and kidnappers, all of them demanding millions in cash or military hardware for ransom.

She wrote that in, as far as I can tell, 1985 or so.

She believes that Kipling was unfairly tagged as a “war-monger” because he saw more clearly that the world was heading toward war, both before WWI and WWII.

R. K. warned again and again about the coming of the First World War in speeches, articles and verses. But no one wanted to know or listen, and all he got for his pains was to be accused of being a ‘war-monger’.

…

I have always believed that Kipling had a crystal ball in his head and that he foresaw the Second World War: as he had foreseen the first.
This was written at a time when everyone was saying gaily that Hitler wouldn’t dream of starting a war and that he wasn’t doing a bad job putting Germany on her feet, etc, etc, and that this was just the same old Kipling, yelling ‘Fire!’

Kipling was contemporary with Chesterton, and his “The Bell Buoy” is reminiscent of what Chesterton said in Heretics about signal boxes:

The word “signal-box” is unpoetical. But the thing signal-box is not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony of vigilance, light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from death.

Kipling is a master of language. Describing a conversation with a captive on a chain gangs includes the line:

And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory

But what he is most known for is his insight into psychology. Here, for example, in “The Last Department”, he writes about the tendency to think of ourselves as indispensable:

Twelve hundred million men are spread
About this Earth, and I and You
Wonder, when You and I are dead,
‘What will those luckless millions do?’

Or from “Natural theology”, his poem about the tendency of people to blame God for their own failings:

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven’t had any tea for a week…
The bottom is out of the Universe!

He has his own entry in the Ozymandias theme with “The Palace”, which takes a more human tone; rather than assuming that their name will be remembered, his characters recognize that other builders will come after them:

After me cometh a builder. Tell him, I too have known!

The illustrations are sketches by Kaye, very much like the sketches that appeared in Kipling’s own books. But interspersed throughout the pages are full-color paintings by George Sharp, illustrating various poems. Some are full-page and some double. All are beautiful.

It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin’ world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you’re readin’ done,
An’ turn another—likely not so good;
But what you’re after is to turn ‘em all.