Having lost his son in the First World War, Kipling removed himself from the public sphere and died in relative isolation. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Whether one chooses to view Kipling as an unreconstructed jingoist or a fundamentally more critical observer of English life, his work comes towards the end of a period in which British people instinctively viewed themselves in a global light. The poem that follows, ‘The English Flag’ (1891), affirms this connection to a larger world beyond the small island and suggests that such links are benign and positive, even in the face of early protests from those ‘colonials’ who preferred to burn the flag.
THE ENGLISH FLAG
Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack, remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in the incident.
DAILY PAPERS
Winds of the Worlds, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro –
And what should they know of England who only England know? –
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!
Must we borrow a clout from the Boer – to plaster anew with dirt?
An Irish liar’s bandage, or an English coward’s shirt?
We may not speak of England; her Flag’s to sell or share.
What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!
The North Wind blew: – ’From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;
‘I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe.
‘By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,
‘And the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod.
‘I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,
‘Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came.
‘I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,
‘And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.
‘The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic nights,
‘The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Lights:
‘What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,
‘Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!’
The South Wind sighed: – ‘From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta’en
‘Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main,
‘Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon
‘Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon.
‘Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,
‘I waked the palms to laughter – I tossed the scud in the breeze.
‘Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,
‘But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
‘I have wrenched it free from the halliards to hang for a wisp on the Horn;
‘I have chased it north to the Lizard – ribboned and rolled and torn;
‘I have spread its folds o’er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;
‘I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.
‘My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross,
‘Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross.
‘What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare,
