Take up the White Man's burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go, bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait, in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child. . . .

Take up the White Man's burden—

The savage wars of peace—

Fill full the mouth of Famine,

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

(The end for others sought)

Watch sloth and heathen folly

Bring all your hope to nought. . . .

Take up the White Man's burden!

Have done with childish days—

The lightly-proffered laurel,

The easy ungrudged praise:

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers.

Source: Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man's Burden,” McClure's Magazine, February 1899, 290–91.