Reviews for The Poetical Works of Robert Southey

The average rating for The Poetical Works of Robert Southey based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-20 00:00:00 Garath Brougham Rudyard Kipling is, I think, someone we think we should like only at arm's length, through filters, with a snowstorm of disclaimers attached, using every if and but and apologising in advance with bells & whistles & hooters that yes he had some unacceptable opinions and used at least one unacceptable word fairly frequently, he was a man of his times, but, he was still, if you can squint your eyes, and in a certain light, and with the wind in the right direction, be considered a great poet. There, I said it! I have a gorgeous edition of this famous book, first published April 1892. This edition was published in 1911 so it's exactly one hundred years old. It cost me £2 a few years ago. What I find in these ballads is a profound sympathy. He has pity, endless pity, for the poor idiots caught up in these giant chunks of history, like empire-building and empire-maintenance. The idiots in question are the poor infantry soldiers who get the sharp end of the terrible decisions and criminal indifference of their generals and officers. There's one ballad called "The Widow's Party", the Widow being Queen Victoria, and the party being a small military disaster which probably went unreported in the press. The soldiers have been invited to this party, and they can't refuse the invitation, much as they may wish to. It's in the form of a dialogue, and Kipling lays on the sarcasm: "What did you get to eat and drink, Johnnie, Johnnie?" Standing water as thick as ink, Johnnie, my Johnnie, ah! A bit o' beef that were three year stored, A bit o' mutton as tough as a board, And a fowl we killed with a sergeant's sword, When the Widow give the party. "What did you do for knives and forks, Johnnie, Johnnie?" We carries 'em with us wherever we walks, Johnnie, my Johnnie, ah! And some was sliced and some was halved, And some was crimped and some was carved, And some was gutted and some was starved, When the Widow give the party. And Kipling, who we are told was the great supporter of Empire and a colonialist through and through, strikes a poignant, almost despairing note : "What was the end of all the show, Johnnie, Johnnie?" Ask my Colonel, for I don't know, Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! We broke a King and we built a road-- A court-house stands where the reg'ment goed. And the river's clean where the raw blood flowed When the Widow give the party. It's not exactly bunting in the streets is it. Dour cynicism is pretty much the default emotion in The Barrack-Room Ballads. Here he is on the plight of the new recruits: When the cholera comes - as it will past a doubt - Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout, For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out, An' it crumples the young British soldier. Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier...! When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen! And when he's done excoriating the awful life of the ordinary soldier, and listing the many ordinary miseries (like troop-marching and gonorrhea) and gruesome deaths (like cholera) which await him, he then turns round and exposes the repulsive nature of Tommy Atkins himself, in a remarkable ballad called "Loot" - here we have a jovial, knowing, winking, violently racist manual of how to get the good stuff for the soldier - how this ever saw the light of print and was not censored for the undermining, subversive expose which it was, I can't say. So here is some "advice" for the new recruit who's being posted off to foreign parts: Now remember when you're 'acking round a gilded Burma god That 'is eyes is very often precious stones; An' if you treat a n**** to a dose o' cleanin'-rod 'E's like to show you everything 'e owns. When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot When the ground begins to sink, shove your baynick down the chink, An' you're sure to touch the loot When from 'ouse to 'ouse you're 'unting, you must always work in pairs-- It 'alves the gain, but safer you will find-- For a single man gets bottled on them twisty-wisty stairs, An' a woman comes and clobs 'im from be'ind. When you've turned 'em inside out, an' it seems beyond a doubt As if there weren't enough to dust a flute Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look, For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot. You wouldn't get away with satirising the Army like that these days. This is very vicious stuff. (Chorus) Loot! loot! loot! Oh the loot! Bloomin' loot! That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot! So after all this cynicism and frank horror about what Great Britain was up to in its vast colonies, it's a relief to come across "Mandalay", a great ballad of a soldier who's come back from the East to England and realises he must have fallen in love back there in Burma - he just didn't know it when he was there, but now he does - he remembers with a pang the woman he met back there, he remembers a kind of wonderland and he can't quite believe he was really there: When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow, She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!" With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek We used to watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. Elephants a-pilin' teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek, Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak! On the road to Mandalay... where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! It's sentimental, yes, but it's sentiment dragged out of a dark place and then denied But that's all shoved be'ind me - long ago an' far away, An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay; An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells: - If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else. No! you won't 'eed nothin' else But them spicy garlic smells, An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells; On the road to Mandalay... Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! Yes, there's a lot wrong with Kipling, but there's an awful lot right too.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-05-28 00:00:00 Juan Quezada Probably the most impressive collection of poems glorifying (sometimes rightfully, sometimes not quite so) the colonial policy and foreign troops. Most likely, quite a few political/military figures escaped the historical obscurity only because of their place in Kipling's ballads.