Kipling and Anzac Day

I have just got home from the dawn Anzac Day service at East Maitland. As always they leave me with mixed ideas. Perhaps Kipling said it rather well.

Recessional (A Victorian Ode) 1897

Rudyard Kipling

GOD of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle line,

Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart;

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire;

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard—

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding calls not Thee to guard.

For frantic boast and foolish word,

Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

This poem set to music has been sung either in whole or more commonly in part at most Anzac Day Services for many years. It is usually seen as the poem of a militant triumphal british Empire and as the poem of the soldiers of that Empire. It isn’t.

Its context is partly given by the date: it was composed for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, in which year the title Queen of all Earthly Queens became a common attribution to her. For most of last century Empire (or later Commonwealth) Day was celebrated on her birthday 25^th May. So from the context it seems that the reputation may be justified.

First note the constant and repeated reference to God or Lord. This is a religious poem. (And so perhaps appropriate for a semi religious day like Anzac Day when at each Dawn Service there are prayers, hymns and an address from a clergyman. But what sort of religion and what sort of God does Kipling invoke?

Seems to be like Land of Hope and Glory (and you need to see the last night at the Proms see British people at their most imperialistic singing this even if Britain has lost an empire and has yet to find a role) where the writer after thanking God

"for making thee (Britain) mighty

prays that God will

"make thee mightier yet"

But each successive verse says the reverse

Verse Three

Our navies melt away

…

all our pomp of yesterday is one with Ninevah and Tyre

When Kipling wrote this the British navy was not merely the largest in the world it was larger than the next two biggest navies in the world and it was the policy to keep it that way. Yet this huge navy melts away.

All the imperial pomp of the late Victorian Empire will be ended like these cities.

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law—

But the British were all Gentiles (Kipling didn’t believe that strange myth that the British were the 10 lost tribes) And the point is clearer with the next reference :Lesser breeds without the Law" (we do not have the Law ie the Jewish Law the only law to be capitalised.

Yet Kipling is saying that we are boasting, we are drunk with power if in fact we forget God and we rely on our own strength. George Orwell believed Kipling to be referring to some German philosophers (Nietsche perhaps) who were without the law in the sense of being lawless and advocating that strong men (supermen in Nietsches words) were not bound by law. Both Orwell and Kipling grew up in an England which was –for all its faults- a country that subscribed to the belief that all men are equal under the law (eg the jury system). It had a law- and a good one- but not the Law but even the Law doesn’t give life.

The message is given in the last 2 lines of each verse. It is not a boasting of Imperial power of weapons of what G W Bush calls Awe and Shock" and of might but a call to repent that boast and to put your trust in God.

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

That gives life

Is this appropriate for Anzac Day?

Far more so then the stuff that people say about Australia being a great country or the Australian soldier being the worlds best. Even if true it defeats the purpose: one of which is to remember (as they say each year) the great tragedy of war. The fruit of war is like the wages of sin, death, God gives life.