The Islanders Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABC DDEEFFGGHHIIJJKLJJMM NOPQJJRRSSTTUUJJVVKL WWJJIIXXVVJJNOJJYYZZ A2B2JJLLC2C2JJDDDDJJ DDD2D2 DDD| No doubt but ye are the People your throne is above the King's | A |
| Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things | A |
| Bowing the head in worship bending the knee in fear | B |
| Bringing the word well smoothen such as a King should hear | C |
| - | |
| Fenced by your careful fathers ringed by your leaden seas | D |
| Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease | D |
| Till Ye said of Strife What is it of the Sword It is far from our ken | E |
| Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your armed men | E |
| Ye stopped your ears to the warning ye would neither look nor heed | F |
| Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts above their need | F |
| Because of your witless learning and your beasts of warren and chase | G |
| Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields for their camping place | G |
| Ye forced them glean in the highways the straw for the bricks they brought | H |
| Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught | H |
| Ye hampered and hindered and crippled ye thrust out of sight and away | I |
| Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for pay | I |
| Then were the judgments loosened then was your shame revealed | J |
| At the hands of a little people few but apt in the field | J |
| Yet ye were saved by a remnant and your land's long suffering star | K |
| When your strong men cheered in their millions while your striplings went to the war | L |
| Sons of the sheltered city unmade unhandled unmeet | J |
| Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the street | J |
| And what did ye look they should compass Warcraft learned in a breath | M |
| Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death | M |
| So And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize | N |
| How are the beasts more worthy than the souls your sacrifice | O |
| But ye said Their valour shall show them but ye said The end is close | P |
| And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes | Q |
| And ye vaunted your fathomless power and ye flaunted your iron pride | J |
| Ere ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride | J |
| Then ye returned to your trinkets then ye contented your souls | R |
| With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals | R |
| Given to strong delusion wholly believing a lie | S |
| Ye saw that the land lay fenceless and ye let the months go by | S |
| Waiting some easy wonder hoping some saving sign | T |
| Idle openly idle in the lee of the forespent Line | T |
| Idle except for your boasting and what is your boasting worth | U |
| If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth | U |
| Ancient effortless ordered cycle on cycle set | J |
| Life so long untroubled that ye who inherit forget | J |
| It was not made with the mountains it is not one with the deep | V |
| Men not gods devised it Men not gods must keep | V |
| Men not children servants or kinsfolk called from afar | K |
| But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war | L |
| Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same | W |
| Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game | W |
| As it were almost cricket not to be mastered in haste | J |
| But after trial and labour by temperance living chaste | J |
| As it were almost cricket as it were even your play | I |
| Weighed and pondered and worshipped and practised day and day | I |
| So ye shall bide sure guarded when the restless lightnings wake | X |
| In the womb of the blotting war cloud and the pallid nations quake | X |
| So at the haggard trumpets instant your soul shall leap | V |
| Forthright accoutred accepting alert from the wells of sleep | V |
| So at the threat ye shall summon so at the need ye shall send | J |
| Men not children or servants tempered and taught to the end | J |
| Cleansed of servile panic slow to dread or despise | N |
| Humble because of knowledge mighty by sacrifice | O |
| But ye say It will mar our comfort Ye say It will minish our trade | J |
| Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid | J |
| For the low red glare to southward when the raided coast towns burn | Y |
| Light ye shall have on that lesson but little time to learn | Y |
| Will ye pitch some white pavilion and lustily even the odds | Z |
| With nets and hoops and mallets with rackets and bats and rods | Z |
| Will the rabbit war with your foemen the red deer horn them for hire | A2 |
| Your kept cock pheasant keep you he is master of many a shire | B2 |
| Arid aloof incurious unthinking unthanking gelt | J |
| Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow beat columns melt | J |
| Will ye pray them or preach them or print them or ballot them back from your shore | L |
| Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more | L |
| Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers Because ye were idle both | C2 |
| Pride by Insolence chastened Indolence purged by Sloth | C2 |
| No doubt but ye are the People who shall make you afraid | J |
| Also your gods are many no doubt but your gods shall aid | J |
| Idols of greasy altars built for the body's ease | D |
| Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes | D |
| Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood pavement gods | D |
| These shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods | D |
| From the gusty flickering gun roll with viewless salvoes rent | J |
| And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent | J |
| When ye are ringed as with iron when ye are scourged as with whips | D |
| When the meat is yet in your belly and the boast is yet on your lips | D |
| When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke | D2 |
| Ere ye lie down at even your remnant under the yoke | D2 |
| - | |
| No doubt but ye are the People absolute strong and wise | D |
| Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes | D |
| On your own heads in your own hands the sin and the caving lies | D |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
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