In 1899 Rudyard Kipling was nearing the peak of his literary career. In 1907 he would win the Nobel Prize. Only thirty-four years old in 1899, he had already published best-selling children's books, collections of stories, and volumes of poetry. Many of his tales were set in India where he had been born and raised. India was, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli told Queen Victoria, the "jewel in the crown," the most important possession of the British Empire. Kipling considered himself a product of that empire, and he became a staunch advocate of western imperialism. It brought "civilization" to "new-caught sullen peoples." It was, in fact, a moral obligation. Favored nations and races had the responsibility to "take up the White Man's burden." Kipling wrote the poem to urge the United States to take over the Philippines. It was time for the United States to take its proper place as an imperial power.

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Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" published in McClure's Magazine, Feb. 1899

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.