East and West”
... Kipling’s justly famous ‘Ballad of East and West’, in which an English officer and an Afghan horse-thief Kamal discover friendship by respecting one another’s courage and chivalry. The ballad tells how, when Kamal the border thief steals a prize bay mare, the Colonel’s son (not named) follows them into enemy territory.Some critical opinions
When his own horse collapses from exhaustion the Colonel’s son, having lost a pistol to Kamal and being threatened with the prospect of making a meal for the jackals and crows, ‘lightly’ responds by promising vengeance:
...Do good to bird and beast’His jesting defiance wins the tribute: ‘May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath’ from Kamal, and the Colonel’s son responds in kind:
But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast’ .
Take up the mare and keep her – by God she has carried a man.Kamal instead gives back the mare with the ‘lifter’s dower’ of his own jewelled accoutrements, and when the Colonel’s son in return offers him the gift of his remaining pistol Kamal, not to be outdone in generosity, whistles up his ’only son’ to be the companion and fellow-soldier of the Englishman. The two young men return to 'Fort Bukloh’ and: 'the boy who last night was ‘a Border-thief’ is now ‘a man of the Guides.’
At the end of the year a young man arrived in London with a sheaf of ballads to sell, and with two or three introductions to editors. The December number of Macmillan’s Magazine contained one of his ballads which set the town on fire, with words which are not likely to be forgotten:Carrington also notes (p. 104) that: 'this ballad is a romantic version of a tale that was in print long before Kipling’s day.' Of the opening he writes (p, 136:)
Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,Eighteen-ninety was Rudyard Kipling’s year. There had been nothing like his sudden rise to fame and fortune since Byron awoke one morning to find that the publication of "Childe Harold" had made him famous.
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat..
No lines of Kipling’s have been more freely quoted, and more often misquoted in exactly the opposite sense which Kipling gave them. The first couplet is an echo from the Psalms where the figure of speech is used to express the universality of the divine law in spite of estranging seas; the second couplet is Kipling’s commentary, with the same theme as the psalmist.The reference is to Psalm 103,12: 'Look how wide also the east is from the west: so far hath he set our sins from us. ' See also Psalm 75,7, and 107, 3. Carrington (p. 350) also sees the poem as reminiscent of Scott’s “Young Lochinvar. Of Barrack-Room Ballads he comments (p.196) :
... a collection of such richness, variety and gusto, if we claim no other merit for it, as to inflate the Kipling boom seven times larger ... it was reprinted three times in 1892, and fifty times in the next thirty years, much the most popular book of verse for more than a generation.Martin Fido notes (p. 62) that: This is Kipling’s first major triumph in London, despite its publication under a nom-de-plume.
All that is clear is that Kipling understood and honoured men of other races more deeply than any other English writer, as a reading of Kim will suggest.And Alfred Lord Tennyson, the aged Poet Laureate, quoted by Carrington (p.136), observed that: 'young Kipling was the only one of them with the divine fire'. See also “The Last of the Light Brigade”.
... Is always quoted without the far-reaching exception that follows, but this may be his fault for putting the negative so emphatically. These are trifles as against the failure to recognise masterpieces but the habit is a bad one and has had more serious results. Therefore it seems to me that I ought to establish that most of Kipling’s work at all stages requires attentive reading. We ought to see clearly even what we reject.See also KJ 056/02 and 122/16, and The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk, (Oxford University Press,1991).
Just back from Pakistan. The scene of "The Ballad of East and West" is quite clearly the plain between Jumrood ('Fort Bukloh') and the mouth of the Khyber Pass ('tongue of Jagai'). Every verbal image in the ballad corresponds with what you can see, hear and smell on the spot. The first village up the pass is actually called 'Shagai'.South of Mardan, Shagai is a region in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A fort built by the British to oversee the Khyber Pass and house the Khyber Rifles still stands, and is today used by the Pakistan Army.
'He is Allah, The Creator, The Originator, The Fashioner, To Him belong the most Beautiful Names. Whatever is in the Heavens and on Earth, Do Declare His Praises and Glory, And He is the Exalted in Might, The Wise.' [Qur’an 59:24][line 89] the Quarter-Guard the main point of security in an Indian Army camp or garrison, providing an armed party—day and night—ready for instant action in emergency. The regimental colours, the armoury and the treasury would be kept in this building. together with a lock-up to hold soldiers charged with minor crimes like absence without leave, drunkenness etc.
I am, by the way, one of the few civilians who have turned out a Quarter-Guard of Her Majesty's troops. It was on a chill winter morn, about 2 A.M. at the Fort, and though I suppose I had been given the countersign on my departure from the Mess, I forgot it ere I reached the Main Guard, and when challenged announced mysel. spaciously as `Visiting Rounds.' When the men had clattered out I asked the Sergeant if he had ever seen a finer collection of scoundrels. That cost me beer by the gallon, but it was worth it.See also “With the Main Guard” in Soldiers Three, page 55, line 9.
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,David Gilmour writes (p. 89): 'The charge of racism is commonly accompanied by the quotation of these lines ... which imply that the peoples on opposite sides of the globe are so different that they will never understand each other until the Day of Judgement...
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth!