"THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" RE-GEARED

With a special fuck you to Rudyard Kipling

Strike up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the worst ye breed--
Go send your sons to die
To stifle your captives' need;
To weigh in heavy harness,
On fettered folk and child--
Your new-caught, oppressed peoples,
Half-free and half-wild.

Strike up the White Man's burden--
Impatience to abide,
To veil your threat of terror
And check their show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek our own profit,
And work another's pain.

Strike up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of profit--
Full tilt the wrath of Famine
And bid the sickness cleanse;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and white Folly
Bring all their hopes to nought.

Strike up the White Man's burden--
The tawdry rule of kings,
To toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall control,
The roads ye shall outspread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with their dead.

Strike up the White Man's burden--
And reap our own reward:
The blame of those ye fetter,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye strangle
(Ah, slowly!) toward our right:--
"Why brought ye us your bondage,
From our loved night skies?"

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

Strike up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish peace--
The lightly proferred helmet,
The easy, grudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manlyness
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought blood,
The judgment of your fears!