The Last of the Light Brigade (penultimate verse edited out) — by Rudyard Kipling
7 Comments Published by Captain Iso June 17th, 2007 in Other Topics, Poetry, Society
There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.
They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four !
They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, “Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites.”
They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant’s order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.
They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.
The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and “Beggin’ your pardon,” he said,
“You wrote o’ the Light Brigade, sir. Here’s all that isn’t dead.
An’ it’s all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin’ the mouth of hell;
For we’re all of us nigh to the workhouse, an’ we thought we’d call an’ tell.
“No, thank you, we don’t want food, sir; but couldn’t you take an’ write
A sort of ‘to be continued’ and ’see next page’ o’ the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an’ couldn’t you tell ‘em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now.”
The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with “the scorn of scorn.”
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.
O thirty million English that babble of England’s might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children’s children are lisping to “honour the charge they made – “
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!
I have found a version of Kipling’s Last of the Light Brigade where the
penultimate verse reads as follows:
“They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog;
They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog;
And they sent (you may call me a liar), when felon and beast were paid,
A cheque, for enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade.”
I heard tell that this verse was considered ‘controversial’ and was removed.
It was attributed to the St James Gazette, 28 April 1890.
Any comments?
I wonder if “the felon that sprang from an Irish bog” is a specific person or a general reference to criminals. The fact that criminals, old horses and stray dogs were a higher welfare priority than England’s aging war heroes doesn’t seem any more controversial than the rest of the poem. I think it reads better without the verse in question and am inclined to believe that Kipling omitted it by preference.
I have since discovered via the Kipling Society, that the verse in question appeared in newspaper editions, including the NY Times, until 1913. When Kipling’s works were ‘collected’ in 1919 the verse is missing.
Perhaps it was an attempt at political correctness since from around 1914 the Irish Home Rule question came to a head. Perhaps Kipling’s American wife Carrie influenced him to remove it.
Thanks for the benefit of your research and further explanation of the verse in question. Your contribution to the isolanis.com poetry section is greatly appreciated.
According to the New York Times of 2 Nov 1913, Tennyson’s sequel poem to ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ revived a Liberal Party charity, which had other uses for the money including funding an Irish Nationalist and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; the last of the Light Brigade got what was left! The deleted verse seems apt.
Thanks again to our poetry commentators for increasing our understanding of this verse. Apt indeed, as this background information gives it almost unbearable weight.
We will publish the poem in its entirety.