The Five Nations

Collection of poems by Rudyard Kipling

This article is about the 1903 poetry collection by Rudyard Kipling. For other topics, see Five Nations (disambiguation).

The Five Nations

Author| Rudyard Kipling
Language| English
Subject| Poetry collection
Genre| Poetry

Publication date

| 1903
Publication place| England

The Five Nations, a collection of poems by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), was first published in late 1903, both in the United Kingdom [1] and the U.S.A.[2] Some of the poems were new; some had been published before (notably "Recessional"" in 1897), sometimes in different versions.

## Description

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In 1903, the United Kingdom consisted of four nations: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It was soon suggested that Kipling's "five nations" were the "five free nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa [i.e. Cape Colony], and 'the islands of the sea' [i.e. the British Isles]" [3]—all dominated by Britons; and except in the last case, by recent settlers. That suggestion was endorsed some one hundred years later.[4]

In an early (1903) review, American critic Bliss Perry delicately called The Five Nations both "a notable collection" and "singularly restricted in range of interest".[3]

## The poems

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This list is complete and up to date as of December 2022.

The poems are divided into two groups. The first is untitled, and covers a wide range of subjects. The second is titled "Service Songs", and mostly relates to the real or imagined experiences of common British soldiers around the turn of the 20th century.

### The untitled group

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* "Dedication"
* "The Sea and the Hills"
* "The Bell Buoy"
* "Cruisers"[Note 1]
* "The Destroyers"[Note 2]
* "White Horses"[Note 3]
* "The Second Voyage"
* "The Dykes"
* "The Song of Diego Valdez"[Note 4]
* "The Broken Men"
* "The Feet of the Young Men"
* "The Truce of the Bear"
* "The Old Men"
* "The Explorer"
* "The Wage-Slaves"
* "The Burial"
* "General Joubert"[Note 5]
* "The Palace"
* "Sussex"[Note 6]
* "Song of the Wise Children"
* "Buddha at Kamakura"[Note 7]
* "The White Man's Burden"
* "Pharaoh and the Sergeant"
* "Our Lady of the Snows"
* "'Et Dona Ferentes'"
* "Kitchener's School"[Note 8]
* "The Young Queen"
* "Rimmon"[Note 9]
* "The Old Issue"
* "Bridge-Guard in the Karroo"[Note 10]
* "The Lesson"
* "The Files"
* "The Reformers"
* "Dirge of Dead Sisters"
* "The Islanders"
* "The Peace of Dives"[Note 11]
* "South Africa"
* "The Settler"

### Service Songs

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* "Chant-Pagan"
* "M.I."[Note 12]
* "Columns"
* "The Parting of the Columns"
* "Two Kopjes"[Note 13]
* "The Instructor"
* "Boots"
* "The Married Man"
* "Lichtenberg"[Note 14]
* "Stellenbosh"[Note 15]
* "Half-Ballad of Waterval"[Note 16]
* "Piet"
* "'Wilful-Missing'"
* "Ubique"
* "The Return"
* "Recessional"

## Notes

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1. ^ A cruiser is a warship.
2. ^ A destroyer is a warship.
3. ^ White horses are wind-driven waves of the sea, crowned with white foam.
4. ^ Diego Menéndez de Valdés [es] (1533–1596), Spanish conquistador.
5. ^ An epitaph on Piet Joubert (1831/34 – 1900), Boer general.
6. ^ Allegedly, the inspiration for the song "Sussex by the Sea".
7. ^ Kamakura, Japan, known for its ancient Buddhist shrines.
8. ^ Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (1850–1916).
9. ^ Rimmon, a Syrian deity mentioned in the Hebrew Bible at 2 Kings 5:18, usually equated to Baal.
10. ^ Karroo, a semi-desert region of South Africa.
11. ^ Dives, the rich man in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
12. ^ M.I. were mounted infantry.
13. ^ A kopje is an isolated rocky hill or outcrop in the South African plains.
14. ^ Lichtenburg, South Africa.
15. ^ Stellenbosch is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), it was a British military base. Officers who had failed to distinguish themselves in battle were posted there.
16. ^ Waterval, South Africa.

## References

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1. ^ Kipling, Rudyard (1903). The Five Nations. London: Methuen. ASIN B00TXCD0YY.
2. ^ Kipling, Rudyard (October 1903). The Five Nations. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. ASIN B00220I242.
3. ^ a b Perry, Bliss (December 1903). "Mr. Kipling's Five Nations". The Atlantic. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
4. ^ Hamer, Mary (6 August 2014). "The Five Nations: A note on the background". The Kipling Society. Retrieved 5 April 2017.

## External links

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English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Five Nations

* The Five Nations public domain audiobook at LibriVox

* v
* t
* e

Rudyard Kipling

Novels|

* The Light That Failed (1891)
* The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892)
* Captains Courageous (1896)
* Kim (1901)

Collections|

* Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
* Soldiers Three (1888)
* The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
* In Black and White (1888)
* The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888)
* Under the Deodars (1888)
* Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
* From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
* Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
* Many Inventions (1893)
* The Jungle Book (1894)
* "Mowgli's Brothers"
* "Kaa's Hunting"
* "Tiger! Tiger!"
* "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
* The Second Jungle Book (1895)
* "Letting in the Jungle"
* "Red Dog"
* All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
* The Seven Seas (1896, poetry)
* The Day's Work (1898)
* Stalky & Co. (1899)
* Just So Stories (1902)
* The Five Nations (1903, poetry)
* Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
* Rewards and Fairies (1910)
* The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
* Debits and Credits (1926)
* Limits and Renewals (1932)
* Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
* A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)

Poems|

* "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
* "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'"
* "The Ballad of East and West"
* "The Beginnings"
* "The Bell Buoy"
* "The Betrothed"
* "Big Steamers"
* "Boots"
* "Cold Iron"
* "Dane-geld"
* "Danny Deever"
* "A Death-Bed"
* "The Female of the Species"
* "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
* "Gentleman ranker"
* "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
* "Gunga Din"
* "Hymn Before Action"
* "If—"
* "In the Neolithic Age"
* "The King's Pilgrimage"
* "The Last of the Light Brigade"
* "Late Came the God"
* "The Lowestoft Boat"
* "Mandalay"
* "The Mary Gloster"
* "McAndrew's Hymn"
* "My Boy Jack"
* "Recessional"
* "A Song in Storm"
* "The Song of the Women"
* "The Sons of Martha"
* "Submarines"
* "The Sweepers"
* "Tommy"
* "Ubique"
* "The White Man's Burden"

Short stories|

* ".007"
* "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
* "Baa Baa, Black Sheep"
* "Bread upon the Waters"
* "The Broken-Link Handicap"
* "The Butterfly that Stamped"
* "Consequences"
* "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
* "Cupid's Arrows"
* "The Devil and the Deep Sea"
* "The Drums of the Fore and Aft"
* "Fairy-Kist"
* "False Dawn"
* "A Germ-Destroyer"
* "His Chance in Life"
* "His Wedded Wife"
* "In the House of Suddhoo"
* "Kidnapped"
* "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris"
* "Lispeth"
* "The Man Who Would Be King"
* "A Matter of Fact"
* "Miss Youghal's Sais"
* "The Mother Hive"
* "The Other Man"
* "The Rescue of Pluffles"
* "The Ship that Found Herself"
* "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo"
* "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
* "Three and – an Extra"
* "The Three Musketeers"
* "Thrown Away"
* "Toomai of the Elephants"
* "Watches of the Night"
* "Wireless"
* "Yoked with an Unbeliever"

Related|

* Bibliography
* Bateman's (house)
* Indian Railway Library
* Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
* Iron Ring
* Law of the jungle
* Aerial Board of Control
* My Boy Jack (1997 play)
* Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary)
* My Boy Jack (2007 film)

Family|

* Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife)
* Elsie Bambridge (daughter)
* John Kipling (son)
* John Lockwood Kipling (father)
* MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
* Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
* Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt)
* Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
* Philip Burne-Jones (cousin)
* Edward Poynter (uncle)
* Alfred Baldwin (uncle)

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