Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books

[Grey_Wolf]

I think they are marvelous (It was a couple of years since I read them last).

[hectorberlioz]

i have them both.
havent gotten to rading thme yet.
i read half of 'Kim' though.

[sun-star]

I haven't read the Jungle Books, but Kipling is great - anyone like the Just So Stories?

I like his poetry too.

[Beruthiel's cat]

"The Cat Who Walked By Himself" is my favorite!

[brownjenkins]

i loved his books... just finished reading them again... i did jungle book with a children's theatre i work with, and though it was the more disneyish version i did suggest the actual books to all the kids involved

[Pimpernel]

yeah, I love "Just So Stories". I have The Jungle Books but i havent gotten to them yet.
I'm in the middle of Kim and I abosolutely love it!
I mean, you gotta love Kipling's underlying hatred of the British rule in India.

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by Pimpernel
yeah, I love "Just So Stories". I have The Jungle Books but i havent gotten to them yet.
I'm in the middle of Kim and I abosolutely love it!
I mean, you gotta love Kipling's underlying hatred of the British rule in India.

?!?!?!?!?

The "Poet Laureate of Empire" ?

While Kipling loved India, he certainly believed that it should remain firmly under the British Raj.

[sun-star]

One of my favourite Kipling poems - long but easy to read, and all about Kent:

Puck's Song

See you the ferny ride that steals
Into the oak-woods far?
O that was whence they hewed the keels
That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the ivy clings
To Bayham’s mouldering walls?
O there we cast the stout railings
That stand around St. Paul’s.

See you the dimpled track that runs
All hollow through the wheat?
O that was where they hauled the guns
That smote King Philip’s fleet.

(Out of the Weald, the secret Weald,
Men sent in ancient years,
The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field,
The arrows at Poitiers!)

See you our little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her tax
Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak,
And the dread ditch beside?
O that was where the Saxons broke
On the day that Harold died.

See you the windy levels spread
About the gates of Rye?
O that was where the Northmen fled,
When Alfred’s ships came by.

See you our pastures wide and lone,
Where the red oxen browse?
O there was a City thronged and known,
Ere London boasted a house.

And see you, after rain, the trace
Of mound and ditch and wall?
O that was a Legion’s camping-place,
When Caesar sailed from Gaul.

And see you marks that show and fade,
Like shadows on the Downs?
O they are the lines the Flint Men made,
To guard their wondrous towns.

Trackway and Camp and City lost,
Salt Marsh where now is corn—
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,
And so was England born!

She is not any common Earth,
Water or wood or air,
But Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye,
Where you and I will fare.


Perhaps this fits just as well into the Ancient Cultures thread. I'd make it my sig if it didn't have so many verses :)