KIPLING’S RECESSIONAL ALMOST LOST

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20440, 5 March 1938, Page 13 (Supplement)

KIPLING’S RECESSIONAL ALMOST LOST

A SHEET of thick blue foolscap, bearing five verses of poetry in small cramped handwriting in black ink in the centre, was recently on view in a glass case in the Thomas Grenville Library of the British Museum, says a London contributor in the Christian Science Monitor. It was Rudyard Kipling’s original manuscript of his famous “ Recessional.” The manuscript has recently been presented to the museum by Miss Elizabeth Gaskeli Norton, a daughter of the American author, Charles Eliot Norton, who had it from her sister Sara. It is a curious story of how were rescued from a wastepaper basket into which Kipling had thrown them, those resonant stanzas ending: For heatnen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard, All valiant dust that builds on dust, Anil guarding calls not Thee to guard, For frantic boast and foolish word— Fhy mercy on thy people, Lord! Thrown in Basket The piece was -written soon after the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, June 22, 1897. On July 16, Kipling and his wife and a visitor. Miss Sara Norton, were in a room of the Kipling house at Kottingdean, Sussex. Kipling was sorting papers. Among ones he threw into the wastepaper basket ■ Mi-- Norton rescued it and, seeing itnature, protested against its destruction. •U ■»'!!• -r I be published was evonHhiaJly kfr to Lady Burne-Jones (Kipling's %uu*> wno lived nearby. She supported

Miss Norton, who herself suggested some rearrangement so as to repeat at the end of the second and fourth verses the words “ Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget—lest we forget.” Sent to The Times Kipling made these alterations with a pen borrowed from Miss Norton. He also changed the concluding words, “Thy mercy on thy people, Lord,” to “ Thy mercy and forgiveness, Lord,” an amendment he subsequently changed back to its original form. A clean copy was made and was sent to The Times, in which journal it appeared on the following day under the heading “ Recessional.” Kipling gave the original manuscript to . liss Norton with the changes she had suggested niaiked with the words “written with Sallie’s pen, R. K.” He also added as a footnote the words, “ Done in Council at North End House July Id. Aunt Georgie, Sallie. Carrie and me.” Referring to the “ Recessional,” Kipling says in his autobiography: “ It was more in the nature of a nuzzur-u-attu lan averter of the evil eye) and—with the conservatism of the English—was } ,sc 'l ,? ] <*f»irs and places where thev sing long after our navy and army alike had in tn«* name of peace been rendered innocuous. It was written just before I wont off i> n r vy njancuvres with my friend Captain Bagiev. When 1 returned it seemed to me that the time was ripe for its publication, -•>. after making one or two changes in it I gave it to The Times. I sav ‘gave.’ he-' < .i'tse for this kind of work 1 did not takr payment.”