AN ONLY SON
I have slain none except my Mother. She
(Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.
THE COWARD
I could not look on Death, which being known,
Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.
THE BEGINNER
On the first hour of my first day
In the front trench I fell.
(Children in boxes at a play
Stand up to watch it well.)
COMMON FORM
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
SALONIKAN GRAVE
I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight –
Time, not battle – that slays.
In 1922 Rudyard Kipling published a set of epitaphs for a fictional cast of people who had died in the Great War. Ancient epitaphs from the Greek Anthology provided formal models. A single one of Kipling's efforts in this genre became well known (If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied) – but even that one is seldom recalled with awareness that Kipling knew himself to be just such a lying father as he accused, and that his own son was lost among the dead.
The prints by William Strang (1859-1921) are from the British Museum – chosen from a set of Thirty Illustrations to Short Stories by Rudyard Kipling issued in 1900-1901.