"Boots" by Rudyard Kipling

I watched the trailer for 28 Years Later a few months ago. There's a eerie sample playing in the background, somebody repeating some creepy phrases. Today I looked up the sample. It's from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, "Boots".

Here's a fantastic reading. Be warned, it's also disturbing.


I read a lot of Kipling as a child. He (and Tennyson) wrote poetry a child can love, and short stories too. But I threw him down in disgust at "White Man's Burden" and never picked him back up again. Even so many of his lines echoed through my mind, all my life.

Nowadays a lot of his stuff comes off as stodgy, over-serious, outdated. I won't read "If" again if I can help it. I'm glad to see he wrote at least one good poem.

Orwell wrote a pretty good essay on him. It's Orwell, so there's still plenty of bullshit to disregard -- "I don't say that it's a true thought, merely that every intelligent man who hasn't deluded himself or fallen to fascism thinks it", yeah, shut the fuck up -- but also sparkling brilliance in the mix. Worth a read.

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