The White Man's Burden
By W. A. Croffut
Washington Post (Feb. 19, 1899).
The Real "White Man's Burden"
By Ernest Crosby
New York Times (Feb. 15, 1899).
Take up the White Man's burden,
Send forth thy radiant youth
To do the White Man's Duty --
To speed the White Man's truth;
To cheer the heavy-hearted,
To lift the sore oppressed;
To send the poor your bounty,
And give the hunted rest.
Take up the White Man's burden,
Go pilot as ye may
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Who do not know the way.
O, teach them not with cannon,
These fluttered folk and wild,
But lead them, as with yearning,
The mother leads her child.
Take up the White Man's burden,
Not as on India's strand,
The sanctimonious butcher
Has laid his bloody hand.
All Albion's honeyed phrases
Shall ne'er from memory drive
The dastard crimes of Hastings -
The infamies of Clive.
Take up the White Man's burden,
Not as in greed and pride,
He built his torture chamber
Above the Ganges tide.
While hearts shall ache with pity,
To heaven's blue dome will ring
The shrieks of Sujah Dowlah --
The groans of Cheyty Sing.
Take up the White Man's burden,
The lion, tired awhile
Devouring peaceful peasants
Along the languid Nile,
Salutes us as her offspring:
"My noble cub," she says,
And offers us her leavings,
And smears us with her praise.
Take up the White Man's burden.
Mark where his bullets sped!
Go face the frenzied mother
Above her precious dead.
Hurry the Red Cross succor
To Luzon's patriot band,
That lie in awful windrows
Along Manila's strand.
Take up the White Man's burden,
Instead of torch and sword,
Let our triumphant banner
Bear Freedom's gracious word.
In peace let heathen worship
Around their altar free --
This is the White Man's burden -
The burden of our sires!
Take up the White Man's burden;
Send forth your sturdy sons,
And load them down with whisky
And Testaments and guns.
Throw in a few diseases
To spread in tropic climes,
For there the healthy niggers
Are quite behind the times.
And don't forget the factories.
On those benighted shores
They have no cheerful iron-mills
Nor eke department stores.
They never work twelve hours a day,
And live in strange content,
Altho they never have to pay
A single cent of rent.
Take up the White Man's burden,
And teach the Philippines
What interest and taxes are
And what a mortgage means.
Give them electrocution chairs,
And prisons, too, galore,
And if they seem inclined to kick,
Then spill their heathen gore.
They need our labor question, too,
And politics and fraud,
We've made a pretty mess at home;
Let's make a mess abroad.
And let us ever humbly pray
The Lord of Hosts may deign
To stir our feeble memories,
Lest we forget -- the Maine.
Take up the White Man's burden;
To you who thus succeed
In civilizing savage hoards
They owe a debt, indeed;
Concessions, pensions, salaries,
And privilege and right,
With outstretched hands you raise to
bless
Grab everything in sight.
Take up the White Man's burden,
And if you write in verse,
Flatter your Nation's vices
And strive to make them worse.
Then learn that if with pious words
You ornament each phrase,
In a world of canting hypocrites
This kind of business pays.
