I am researching RK's suppressed masterpiece "The Burden of Jerusalem." David Richards has been extremely helpful and has sent me an advance copy of his forthcoming bibliography to be published by the British Museum in 2010. The poem features prominently in Christopher Hitchens' Blood, Class and Nostalgia, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990, pp.86-8, as it had been sent by Winston Churchill to Franklin Roosevelt 17 October 1943. He wrote, "I understand that Mrs. Kipling decided not to publish them [Including A Chapter of Proverbs] in case they should lead to controversy and it is therefore important that their existence should not become known and that there should be no public reference to this gift." Birkenhead printed two verses, but here it is whole:
THE BURDEN OF JERUSALEM
In ancient days and deserts wild
There rose a feud--still unsubdued--
Twixt Sarah's son and Hagar's child
That centred round Jerusalem
(While underneath the timeless boughs
Of Mamre's oak 'mid stranger-folk
The Patriarch slumbered and his spouse
Nor dreamed about Jerusalem.)
But Ishmael lived where he was born,
And pastured there in tents of hair
Among the Camel and the Thorn--
Beersheba, South Jerusalem
But Israel sought employ and food
At Pharoah's knees, till Rameses
Dismissed his plaguey multitude,
With curses, toward Jerusalem.
Across the wilderness they came
And launched their horde o'er Jordan's ford,
And blazed the road by sack and flame
To Jebusite Jerusalem.
Then Kings and Judges ruled the land,
And did not well by Israel,
Till Babylonia took a hand
And drove them from Jerusalem.
And Cyrus sent them back anew,
To carry on as they had done,
Till angry Titus overthrew
The fabric of Jerusalem.
Then they were scattered North and West,
While each Crusade more certain made
That Hagar's vengeful son possessed
Mohammedan Jerusalem.
Where Ishmael held his desert state
And framed a creed to serve his need--
"Allah-hu-Akbar! God is Great!"
He preached it in Jerusalem.
And every realm they wandered through
Rose, far or near, in hate and fear,
And robbed and tortured, chased and slew,
The outcasts of Jerusalem.
So ran their doom--half seer, half slave--
And ages passed, and at the last
They stood beside each tyrant's grave,
And whispered of Jerusalem.
We do not know what God attends
The Unloved Race in every place
Where they amass their dividends
From Riga to Jerusalem.
But all the course of Time makes clear
To everyone (except the Hun)
It does not pay to interfere
With Cohen from Jerusalem.
For 'neath the Rabbi's curls and fur
(Or scents and rings of movie-kings)
The aloof, unleavened blood of Ur,
Broods steadfast on Jerusalem.
Where Ishmael bides in his own place--
A robber bold, as was foretold,
To stand before his brother's face--
The wolf without Jerusalem.
And burdened Gentile o'er the main,
Must bear the weight of Israel's hate
Because he is not brought again
In triumph to Jerusalem.
Yet he who bred the unending strife,
And was not brave enough to save
The Bondsmaid from the furious wife,
He wrought thy woe, Jerusalem.
Interestingly, Hitchens quotes another [August 1942] letter from Churchill to Roosevelt:
Here in the Middle East, the Arabs might claim by majority they could expell the Jews from Palestine, or at any time forbid all further immigration. I am strongly wedded to the Zionist policy, of which I was one of the authors.
As Dave Richards notes, the poem was " reprinted in Harboard, Verse No. 1163, as 'Jews or Jews and Arabs'."
Not only is this poem RK's suppressed and neglected masterpiece, I think it is fair to say it is a bombshell that could be printed on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper. It has never been more relavant than it is in October 2009. RK neatly sums up the essential history in the last four millenia and tosses the hot potato in our collective laps. Is it still too hot to handle? Not in the quorum of The Kipling Society!
Thoughtfully yours,
Kipling Hedley
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