The Song of the Dead

Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges --
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South -- [in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays]1 [through]2 the dust of the sere river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle-hollows,
[Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof -- in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.]1

Song of the Dead in the West in the Barrens, the [pass]3 that betrayed them,
[Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and]1 the grave-rnound they made them;
Hear now the Song of the Dead!

I
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks -- as the steer breaks -- from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed -- then the food failed -- then the last water dried.
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift -- on the veldt-side -- in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after-follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
Follow after -- we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after-follow after -- for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!

When Drake went down to the Horn
And England was crowned thereby,
'Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed
Our Lodge -- our Lodge was born
(And England was crowned thereby!)

Which never shall close again
By day nor yet by night,
While man shall take his ife to stake
At risk of shoal or main
(By day nor yet by night)

But standeth even so
As now we witness here,
While men depart, of joyful heart,
Adventure for to know
(As now bear witness here!)

II
We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in tull!

There's never a flood goes shoreward now
But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
But drops our dead on the sand --
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,
From the Ducies to the Swin.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid it in!

We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,
Or tbe wreck that struck last tide --
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
Where the ghastly blue-lights flare
If blood be tbe price of admiralty,
If blood be tbe price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!

by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) , "The Song of the Dead", from Barrack-Room Ballads, in A Song of the English

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Sir Granville Ransome Bantock (1868-1946) , "We have fed our seas", published 1919, part 2 of the poem. [voice and piano]
by Rutland Boughton (1878-1960) , "The Price of the Admiralty", 1901, part two of the poem [baritone and orchestra], from Songs of the English, no. ?
by Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) , "We have fed our seas", published 1912, part two of the poem. [mixed chorus, brass choir, strings ad libitum]
by Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961) , "We were dreamers", <<1899, part one of the poems. [SATB chorus]
by Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) , "The Song of the Dead", 1898?, preamble of the poem

Date added to the website: 2009-02-10.

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