Note.—The Recessional is one of the most delicate and graceful poems in the language, yet it has such strength and virility, is so easily understood and has such profound religious sentiment, that it is regarded as one of the noblest things ever written. Kipling himself tells us how it was written:

“That poem gave me more trouble than anything I ever wrote. I had promised the Times a poem on the Jubilee, and when it became due, I had written nothing that had satisfied me. The Times began to want the poem badly, and sent letter after letter asking for it. I made many more attempts but no further progress. Finally the Times began sending telegrams. So I shut myself in a room with a determination to stay there until I had written a Jubilee poem. Sitting down with all my previous attempts before me I searched through those dozens of sketches, till at last I found just one line I liked. That was, ‘Lest we forget.’ Round these words The Recessional was written.”

A recessional is a hymn sung while the clergy and the choir are retiring at the end of a church service. We must remember that this hymn was written for the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Victoria, and that its sentiment is English. The central idea appearing in the refrain at the end of each stanza is that the nation must recognize the presence of God, and remember its duties to Him. While the phrases in the poem call us constantly back to England and English dominions, yet the sentiment is so universal and so applicable to all nations, that the hymn is admired everywhere.

The first stanza refers to the conquests of England, whose battle lines have been flung far over all parts of the world, and to the fact that under the awful hand of God the British hold dominion over India and the tropical lands where the palm tree grows, as well as over the pine-clad hills of Canada and other Northern regions. It is an appeal to the Almighty to be with the nation, and to remind the people of their duty to the God of Hosts. The succeeding stanzas may be paraphrased as follows:

After the tumult and the shouting of the celebration die away, when the captains and the kings, who have met from all parts of the world to pay homage to the queen and to the nation, depart, there still remains as the most acceptable gift to God, the ancient sacrifice—an humble and a contrite heart.

The British navies, called to far distant climes, separate and melt away. Sinking below the horizon they see behind them on the dunes and headlands the smouldering bonfires lit in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The once magnificent cities of Nineveh and Tyre are now in ruins, perhaps covered by shifting desert sands. Their pomp and their glory have departed, but no more completely than the glory and the pomp of yesterday have gone from the nation. Judge of all Nations, spare the English from destruction, and keep them in mind of their obligations to Thee.

If, glorying in our power, we talk wildly of what we have done in words that give no praise to God, and boast as the barbaric races do, we pray Thee, Lord God of Hosts, to remind us that everything we possess has come from thy guiding hand.

Show mercy to thy people, Lord, for frantic boasts and foolish words, for heathen hearts that put their trust in reeking cannon and the fragments of bursting shells, and to those who, bravely guarding the wide borders of our land, forget that they are but valiant dust, and call not upon Thee to guard them.