Recessional (poem)

"Recessional" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It was composed for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, in 1897.

Description
"Recessional" contains five stanzas of six lines each. As a recessional is a hymn or piece of music that is sung or played at the end of a religious service, in some respects the title dictates the form of the poem, which is that of a traditional English hymn.

Initially, Kipling had not intended to write a poem for the Jubilee. It was written and published only towards the close of the Jubilee celebrations, and represents a comment on them, an afterword. The poem was first published in The Times on July 17, 1897.

The poem went against the celebratory mood of the time, providing instead a reminder of the transient nature of British Imperial power. The poem expresses pride in the British Empire, but also an underlying sadness that the Empire must eventually go the way of all previous empires. "The title and its allusion to an end rather than a beginning add solemnity and gravitas to Kipling's message." In the poem, Kipling argues that boasting and jingoism, faults of which he was often accused, were inappropriate and vain in light of the permanence of God.

Biblical references
While not particularly religious himself, Kipling understood the value of sacred traditions and processions in English history. As a poet, he drew on the language of the Authorised Version of the Bible, familiar to most of his English-speaking readers, in order to reach a deeper level of response.

The phrase "lest we forget" forms the refrain of "Recessional". It is taken from Deuteronomy 6,12: "Then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt". The reference to the "ancient sacrifice" as a "humble and a contrite heart" is taken from the Miserere (Psalm 51).

Publication
"Recessional" was reprinted in The Spectator on July 24, 1897. Kipling had composed "The White Man's Burden" for Victoria's jubilee, but replaced it with "Recessional". "Burden", which became better known, was published two years later, and was modified to fit the theme of American expansion after the Spanish–American War. Kipling included the poem in his 1903 collection The Five Nations.

In Australia and New Zealand "Recessional" is sung as a hymn on Anzac Day, to the tune "Melita" ("Eternal Father, Strong to Save"). The Anglican Church of Canada adopted the poem as a hymn, as has the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a 1985 hymnal.

Leslie Fish set the poem to music, along with several other Kipling poems, on her album "Our Fathers of Old".

T. S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse.