331 - East and West: Never the Twain Shall Meet? | Big Think 331 - East and West: Never the Twain Shall Meet? Over a year ago . If you’re American, geographically inclined and a bit of a stickler, this cartographic incongruity is a bit of an annoyance. From the US, the shortest route to what’s conventionally called ‘the East’ is in fact via the west. Going in that direction, you’ll hit the ‘Far East’ before you’re in the ‘Middle East’. And Europe, or at least that part usually included in ‘the West’, lies due east. So East is west, and West is east, in blatant contradiction of what’s probably Rudyard Kipling’s most famous line of verse: . Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet This opening line of The Ballad of East and West is often quoted to underline some insurmountable difference between the two hemispheres. It has almost invariably been misused. Taken as a whole, the Ballad has a subtler message than the one implied in this single verse. It attributes the gap between the two cultures more to nurture than nature.

The entire couplet (which also closes the poem) reads: Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border nor Breed nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth! The poem dates from 1889 and is set in the British Raj. At least here the context is pretty clear: Britain is the West, India the East. But definitions of ‘East’ and ‘West’ vary greatly throughout history – and remain fluid. To stick to the British perspective of the poem, where did (and where does) the East begin? The Berlin Wall? Istanbul? The Middle East? Persia? The Indus River? Or at the Greenwich Meridian, placing London in both the eastern and western hemispheres? As it turns out, a general definition for what is East and where West is, one that transcends place and time, is impossible to formulate. This is because both terms are ambiguous to start with.

The word West derives from an Proto-Indo-European root [*wes-] that signifies a downward movement, hence associated with the setting sun (cf. Latin vesper, from the same root and meaning both ‘evening’ and ‘West’). The Proto-Indo-European root for East is [*aus-], which has the opposite meaning, i.e. an upward movement (of the sun), dawn. As those etymologies suggest, East and West are but a matter of perspective. East is where the sun rises, West where it sets – as viewed from wherever you are. Which, incidentally, also means that it’s essentially impossible to be ‘in’ the East or West, as both aren’t fixed places, but shift with the horizon. Nevertheless, ‘East’ and ‘West’ have been embedded in our topographies ever since civilisations started naming the world around them. Take Europe for example. The name quite possibly derives from the Phoenician word ereb, meaning ‘setting’ (as in ‘setting sun’), as it lay to the west of Phoenicia (present-day Lebanon, more or less).

Similarly, the term Maghreb, used to describe the North African region at the western edge of the Arab world (i.e. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), is Arab for ‘sunset’ or ‘western’, as that is indeed their position from a peninsularly Arab point of view. Point of view is crucial, of course. East and West only exist in relation to someplace else. For many centuries, Europe was the vantage point from which the world was discovered, viewed and named. Columbus sailed west to arrive East in India, but instead stumbled on a new continent. It took a while for the confusion to lift, so the first name for America was the Indies, from 1555 on shifting to West Indies (when the mistake became increasingly apparent). About four decades later, the original Indies (i.e. India and South East Asia) started to be called the East Indies – to distinguish them more clearly from the West Indies. East and West were defined relative to Europe. Or more precisely Western Europe, for even eastern Germans and Balts were called easterlings by mediaeval (Western) chroniclers.

That East-West divide within Europe would harden from the beginning of the 20th century, with ‘the West’ used in a geopolitical sense from World War I, denoting the Allies (Britain, France, Italy) as opposed to Germany and Austria-Hungary (although they were known as the Central Powers, not the Eastern ones). ‘The West’, in opposition to the Soviet Union, was first used in 1918, ‘the East’ as in the Communist Eastern part of Europe was first recorded in 1951. During the Cold War, ‘the West’ was pretty clearly delineated, including all the NATO members (plus countries economically and culturally close to that alliance’s shared ideals, i.e. Sweden, Switzerland and Austria, but even Australia and New Zealand). ‘The East’, concurrently, consisted of the Warsaw Pact and affiliated Communist societies: China (“The East is Red”), North Korea, Vietnam. The fact that the Cold War is over, not to mention the continuously diminishing global impact of Europe, will continue to chip away at the still dominant eurocentric toponymy of the world.

In Australia, that ‘western outpost’ in the Pacific, ties with the ‘mother country’ (and Europe as a whole) have become so distant that Ozzies have begun referring to countries such as Indonesia, China and Japan not as the Far East, but as the Near North. Maybe the same will happen one day in the US, when Europe will no longer be the West but (with a nod to Don Rumsfeld and Europe’s pensioner boom) the Old East and East Asia perhaps will be the New West. Not forgetting that the Chinese have never thought of themselves as eastern or western but, of course, the Middle Kingdom… This map was sent in by Dennis J. Brennan, Sara Harrison, Kristin Kopf, and can be found here at the rather fantastic xkcd.com , “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language”, quoted before on this blog for its amusing map of online communities . MOST POPULAR EAST IS EAST AND WEST IS WEST... DID KIPLING GET IT RIGHT? EAST IS EAST AND WEST IS WEST... DID KIPLING GET IT RIGHT?

Over a century ago, long before anyone became aware of the term multicultural, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called "The Ballad of East & West" whose initial line reads: "East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet." Kipling seemed to be saying that all of us are, to some extent at least, unable to adapt to the ways of others. Joseph Rudyard Kipling ought to have known, he was born in Bombay, India, where his father, John Lockwood Kipling, was a teacher at the local Jeejeebhoy School of Art. Kipling himself was essentially part of both cultures, having been born to expatriates and partly raised and working in a foreign environment before returning to the place of his birth. The British in their colonisation process tended, or at least attempted, to adapt foreign conditions to themselves rather than adapting themselves to foreign conditions. One has only to look around their former colonies to see abundant evidence of this. The names of places or towns show clearly their origins: New York, New Jersey, New England, Nova Scotia (New Scotland that is), New South Wales, Christchurch, etc.

The British always believed in making the mountain come to Mohamed and they almost always got away with it because of their military power. So the question that might be asked is, if Westerners find it hard to make the transition to the East, why would Easterners find it any easier to make the transition to the West? Especially why in the main, they do not seem to do so, although many of them emigrate to western countries? Perhaps the answer to this question lies more in the specific environment from which emigrants come. Immigrants from the Caribbean or West African countries seem to adapt much more easily to western cultures and concepts than do those from eastern lands, although there are some exceptions. People from India, while tending ï¿½ as do most immigrants anywhere ï¿½ to form, live and marry within their own communities, at least in the initial generations, very often integrate into the societies in which they find themselves. Indeed Canada has quite a number of such immigrants, or their offspring, serving as MPs in Ottawa. This is not quite so true though of many people coming from other countries in the Middle East or from places like Pakistan who happen to be followers of the Islamic faith.

Islam, unlike other formal religious faiths, is an integral way of life. The Muslim (ï¿½One who submitsï¿½) can allow no separation between his life and his religion, his politics and his faith. In Canada, now presumably the fourth best country in the world, where freedom of speech at a Quebec radio station is menaced, the ones doing the menacing, our unelected friends at the CRTC (Canadian Radio Television Commission) awarded a licence to al-Jazeera. One wonders if it too will lose its licence if those videos of the beheading of westerners, which al-Jazeera seems pleased to show once in a while, do not have the required Canadian victim content! One of al-Jazeeraï¿½s popular presenters is the controversial Egyptian imam, Dr Al Qaradawi, of whom the UKï¿½s BBC cooed approvingly that he has ï¿½starï¿½ status among the worldï¿½s Muslims. He is the one at whose feet the obsequious Mayor of London grovelled recently, and is a staunch promoter of human rights such as executing homosexuals, the right of men to beat their wives, and the murder of innocent Jews.

During the ensuing uproar it went unnoticed that he also wants to conquer Europe. Those who have difficulty believing all this should listen to his popular TV show Sharia and Life, presumably coming to you soon on al-Jazeera. Again, according to MEMRI which translates the imamï¿½s broadcasts, he prophesied in 1999 that, ï¿½Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects.ï¿½ This man is not some bizarre fringe performer but someone whose programmes are extremely popular and are being watched by millions throughout the Middle East and Europe. Another preacher, the Saudi Sheikh Said al Qahtani, said on a recent TV broadcast that ï¿½We did not occupy the US, with eight million Muslims, using bombings.

Had we been patient and let time take its course, instead of the eight million there could have been 80 million [Muslims], and 50 years later perhaps the US would have become Muslim.ï¿½ This appears to be an implied criticism of Al-Qaï¿½eda for waking a slumbering West, and is hard to dismiss as a simple aberration. Indeed, the quite moderate former director of the Islamic Cultural Centre in London, Dr Zaki Badawi, has admitted that, ï¿½Islam endeavours to expand in Britain. Islam is a universal religion. It aims to bring its message to all.ï¿½ ï¿½Recently an item in the press mentioned that Canadian judges could be enforcing Islamic law, or Sharia, soon in disputes between Muslims.

Could this be the precursor of an Islamic penal law which will institute sentences such as the flogging or the stoning of adulterous women?ï¿½ Perhaps Bernard Lewis put it as succinctly as possible in his recent best-selling book The Crisis of Islam when he wrote ï¿½The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule.ï¿½ The Muslim tradition divides the world into two parts, Dar al Islam, where Muslims rule, and Dar al Harb, the ï¿½field of warï¿½ where the infidels live, something we might do well to remember. The West is constantly castigated for having imposed its decadent values, culture and language on Third World countries, but one rarely reads that Islam colonised lands containing advanced and ancient civilizations. How long did it take the Spanish to retrieve their country in the lengthy ï¿½Reconquistaï¿½? Something like 700 years if memory serves. Elsewhere, a central Asian people, the Turks, converted to Islam and conquered the ancient Christian land of Anatolia (now Turkey).

In 1453 they captured Constantinople, then the centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church. They turned the sublime Hagia Sophia, which had been one of the most important churches in Christendom for almost 1,000 years after it was built in 537A.D, into a mosque, adding minarets. For four hundred years the Turks occupied Greece and much of the Balkans, turning the Parthenon into a mosque and besieging Vienna, before retreating as their endurance declined. Talk to a Greek Cypriot or a Greek about Islam and the Turks, but be careful to put some cotton wool in your ears first! The imam of the mosque of the Saudi governmentï¿½s King Fahd Defence Academy, Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd al Rahman al ï¿½Arifi, wrote recently, ï¿½We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it.ï¿½ They already have a mosque there. Of course, before anyone writes to tell me, I am aware that Christianity has been just as much a conquering religion in its time.

The Spanish destroyed the ancient civilisations of Central and South America quite ruthlessly as they spread their message of Christian love. It was Christians too who colonised the Americas and Australia, annihilating the natives as they went. All the while, Christian missionaries were at work busy converting much of Africa. Now they have stopped their conquering and converting; indeed in much of the Christian world, in places like Quebec and France to name but two, they seem to have stopped believing in Christianity as well. If there are doubters still about things like freedom of religious belief then consider that the Saudi Arabian government bans all churches, while the west is building, if not paying for, so-called Islamic Cultural centres. Some of the funding for the UKï¿½s East London mosque came from such bodies as the European Development Fund, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Surestart (the UK Government's programme to deliver the best start in life for every child by bringing together: early education, childcare, health and family support), and the London Development Agency. In some Islamic countries even the preaching of Christianity is banned, contrasting starkly with the West where the right to practice religion is enshrined in our laws and constitutions.

Those 50,000 French converts to Islam, mentioned earlier, have all done so freely without reproach; any who convert to Christianity from Islam can expect death threats at the very least. Ask any of the Christian Pakistani refugees that Canada has sent back to their own country, if they are still alive that is. While the Crusades were, by and large, attempts to retrieve lands which were formerly Christian, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, apologises for them almost constantly. Rather as an old lady might apologise to a mugger for trying to retrieve her purse, was the way the Archbishop of Canterbury described it. Contrast this with the statements of his opposite numbers which call loudly for the overthrow of Christendom. This is not to claim either that all conversion to Islam has been by the sword. Indonesia was peaceably converted by Muslim traders and is now the most populous of all the Islamic nations. But the conquests havenï¿½t stopped; Islam has continued spreading in sub-Saharan Africa most noticeably in Nigeria and Sudan. Heard from Darfur recently?

Even the most vociferous critics of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions by President Bush are unlikely to believe that he did so in order to spread the word of Jesus. The supreme irony in this is that by deposing the hated Saddam Hussein, who ran the most secular of Arab regimes, the USA, publicly in favour of creating an Iraqi democracy, is actually transferring power to the imams. We read too of Christian churches in Iraq being attacked. Over the centuries, religions have changed because they needed to do so in order to survive. The Roman Catholic Church split into two when the Eastern Church broke away. Additional fragmentation occurred at the Reformation as numerous other sects came into being and today who knows how many Protestant sects there are? Even Judaism, the basis of both Christianity and Islam, has changed over the almost four thousand years of its existence and did so by making changes which allowed its devotees to live and survive in various cultures and countries. This does not seem to be true of Islam, where there appears to be no room for adaptation to the conditions of the 21st century, nor seemingly any incentive to do so. The laws of the 7th century were essentially designed for a nomadic people and have remained virtually unchanged ever since.

This is in part why modern concepts of freedom, human and womenï¿½s rights, equality and tolerance have not advanced in the Muslim world. Indeed there is conflict in many countries which have large Muslim populations and one only has to think about the Philippines and India to realise this. India, where Islamic invaders burned their way through the country periodically from the 8th century onwards, has endured sectarian violence for centuries, culminating in the creation of Pakistan. Mohammedï¿½s injunction to ï¿½Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find themï¿½ was enthusiastically followed in India, where not only Hindus but Buddhists ï¿½ a religion which has never fought a religious war ï¿½ were slaughtered and their women and children taken into slavery. The Hindus were fair game, not being ï¿½of the bookï¿½ as are Christians and Jews, although too numerous to eliminate completely. A Sharia regime grants the status of Dhimmitude to the Dhimmis (a protected people) allowing them to practice their religion.

They do so, but under a series of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the command of the Koran that non-Muslims shall ï¿½feel themselves subdued.ï¿½ This denial of equality of rights and dignity is part of the Sharia which the global Islamists would like to impose everywhere they go, ultimately the entire world. Recently an item in the press mentioned that Canadian judges could be enforcing Islamic law, or Sharia, soon in disputes between Muslims. Could this be the precursor of an Islamic penal law which will institute sentences such as the flogging or the stoning of adulterous women? What about other Muslim cultural features such as arranged marriages, divorce at will (by the husband of course), revenge killings, and female circumcision? Islam does not take kindly to music and dancing, gambling is forbidden and while not absolutely prohibited, drinking alcohol is discouraged. Will Canada become like the Malaysian state, controlled by an Islamist party, which says that any Muslim who converts to another faith has three days in which to repent, failing which he faces having his property forfeited and being sentenced to death? As one Dutch imam pointed out ï¿½The Sharia does not have to adapt to the modern world because these are divine laws.

People have to bend to the Sharia.ï¿½ What many of todayï¿½s politically correct ï¿½liberalsï¿½ and social engineers will think of as expressions of ï¿½toleranceï¿½ and ï¿½diversityï¿½, are perceived by Islamist radicals as simply more examples of decadent Western weakness. Judging from what is known of the internal structure of many Islamic communities living in Western countries, the notion that consent would always be genuine is quite implausible. Those Islamic radicals pushing for the introduction of Shariah into Western countries do not want to ï¿½live in peaceï¿½ with us, they seek the destruction of all that we understand and accept as Western values. Should they fail to convert us, as their writings show clearly, they would be prepared to accept our actual physical destruction.

The aforementioned Dr Al Qaradawi is also the spiritual guide of the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood, which is growing across Europe, and whose leader Muhammad Mahdi Othman ï¿½Akef declared recently, ï¿½I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.ï¿½ Can we be confident that he was not including Canada in his prediction? Can we be certain that our politicians understand that Islam is not simply a religion, but a way of life? Given the extremely short term views of Western politicians, whose concern for their countryï¿½s future rarely extends beyond the next election, the answer is likely to be more restrictions on the freedom of their own populations. We can expect also the continuing politically correct condemnation, using ï¿½hate speechï¿½ laws, of those who try to raise awareness of the problems likely to arise when intolerance is invited into a society in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism. Maybe Kipling was on to something after all. CURRENT ISSUE ï¿½ SUBSCRIBE TO QL ï¿½ WHO ARE WE?

ï¿½ SUBMISSION GUIDELINES ï¿½ REPRINT POLICY ï¿½ WRITE TO US ï¿½ East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet | Define East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet at Dictionary.com east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet in Culture Expand East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet definition The culture of the West ( Europe and the Americas) will always be very different from that of the East ( Asia ). (Twain means “two.”) This saying is part of the refrain of “The Ballad of East and West,” a poem by Rudyard Kipling . East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet definition A line from a poem by Rudyard Kipling . It continues, a few lines later: “But there is neither East nor West ...

When two strong men stand face to face.” The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. People invent new words all the time, but which ones actually make it? Word of the Day The Ballad of East and West The Sussex Edition Vol. 32, p. 231 The Burwash Edition Vol. 25 A Choice of Kipling�s Verse by T.S. Eliot The Works of Rudyard Kipling (Wordsworth Poetry Library) Other ballads tragic and light-hearted are in the �Other Verses� section of Barrack-Room Ballads; see also �The Dove of Dacca�. The Theme This is neatly encapsulated by Jan Montefiore (p. 75): ... Kipling�s justly famous �Ballad of East and West�, in which an English officer and an Afghan horse-thief Kamal discover friendship by respecting one another�s courage and chivalry.

The ballad tells how, when Kamal the border thief steals a prize bay mare, the Colonel�s son (not named) follows them into enemy territory. When his own horse collapses from exhaustion the Colonel�s son, having lost a pistol to Kamal and being threatened with the prospect of making a meal for the jackals and crows, �lightly� responds by promising vengeance: ...Do good to bird and beast� But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast� . His jesting defiance wins the tribute: �May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath� from Kamal, and the Colonel�s son responds in kind: Take up the mare and keep her � by God she has carried a man. Kamal instead gives back the mare with the �lifter�s dower� of his own jewelled accoutrements, and when the Colonel�s son in return offers him the gift of his remaining pistol Kamal, not to be outdone in generosity, whistles up his �only son� to be the companion and fellow-soldier of the Englishman.

The two young men return to 'Fort Bukloh� and: 'the boy who last night was �a Border-thief� is now �a man of the Guides.� Some critical opinions Charles Carrington writes of the year 1889 (p. xix.): At the end of the year a young man arrived in London with a sheaf of ballads to sell, and with two or three introductions to editors. The December number of Macmillan�s Magazine contained one of his ballads which set the town on fire, with words which are not likely to be forgotten: Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God�s great Judgement Seat.. Eighteen-ninety was Rudyard Kipling�s year. There had been nothing like his sudden rise to fame and fortune since Byron awoke one morning to find that the publication of "Childe Harold" had made him famous. Carrington also notes (p.

104) that: 'this ballad is a romantic version of a tale that was in print long before Kipling�s day.' Of the opening he writes (p, 136:) No lines of Kipling�s have been more freely quoted, and more often misquoted in exactly the opposite sense which Kipling gave them. The first couplet is an echo from the Psalms where the figure of speech is used to express the universality of the divine law in spite of estranging seas; the second couplet is Kipling�s commentary, with the same theme as the psalmist. The reference is to Psalm 103,12: 'Look how wide also the east is from the west: so far hath he set our sins from us. ' See also Psalm 75,7, and 107, 3. Carrington (p. 350) also sees the poem as reminiscent of Scott�s �Young Lochinvar. Of Barrack-Room Ballads he comments (p.196) : ... a collection of such richness, variety and gusto, if we claim no other merit for it, as to inflate the Kipling boom seven times larger ...

it was reprinted three times in 1892, and fifty times in the next thirty years, much the most popular book of verse for more than a generation. Martin Fido notes (p. 62) that: This is Kipling�s first major triumph in London, despite its publication under a nom-de-plume. Kingsley Amis (page 54) also discusses the misquotations, broadly agreeing with the above, and finally observing: All that is clear is that Kipling understood and honoured men of other races more deeply than any other English writer, as a reading of Kim will suggest. And Alfred Lord Tennyson, the aged Poet Laureate, quoted by Carrington (p.136), observed that: 'young Kipling was the only one of them with the divine fire'. See also �The Last of the Light Brigade�. J M S Tompkins (pp.77-78), with her usual perspicacity notes Kipling grumbling that the opening line: ... Is always quoted without the far-reaching exception that follows, but this may be his fault for putting the negative so emphatically.

These are trifles as against the failure to recognise masterpieces but the habit is a bad one and has had more serious results. Therefore it seems to me that I ought to establish that most of Kipling�s work at all stages requires attentive reading. We ought to see clearly even what we reject. See also KJ 056/02 and 122/16, and The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk, (Oxford University Press,1991). Notes on the text [line 5] Kamal is out He is raiding the border between Afghanistan and British India with an armed party and perhaps inviting others to join him as in �The Head of the District� , Life�s Handicap p. 127. [line 8] calkins Horseshoes. Reversing the horse-shoes to confuse pursuers was traditionally an old ruse of cattle-thieves on the English-Scottish border. [line 9] the Guides A celebrated regiment of the Indian Army under the British, with a reputation for initiative, endurance, and daring. They are now part of the elite Frontier Force Regiment of the Pakistan Army. [line 11] Ressaldar An Indian cavalry officer.

(the spelling varies). [line 12] pickets small parties of troops ahead of the main body to report sightings of the enemy [line 13] Abazai town in Charsadda District, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan [line 14] Fort Bukloh Identified by Charles Carrington in a letter to the Kipling Journal, (KJ 126/25) : Just back from Pakistan. The scene of "The Ballad of East and West" is quite clearly the plain between Jumrood ('Fort Bukloh') and the mouth of the Khyber Pass ('tongue of Jagai'). Every verbal image in the ballad corresponds with what you can see, hear and smell on the spot. The first village up the pass is actually called 'Shagai'. South of Mardan, Shagai is a region in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A fort built by the British to oversee the Khyber Pass and house the Khyber Rifles still stands, and is today used by the Pakistan Army. [line 16] Tongue of Jagai see �The Head of the District�, Life�s Handicap, p.

120, line 19. [line 20] breech-bolt part of the mechanism of a rifle that makes a characteristic noise when operated. [line 21] dun A brownish mouse-coloured horse. [line 22] the mouth of a bell hard-mouthed and so difficult to control. gallows-tree the framework on which criminals are hanged, and so an ugly-looking creature. [line 28] the white of her eye an echo of the order attributed to William Prescott at the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775: 'don�t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes'.. [line 29] ball the missile fired by a firearm. [line 31] dust-devils small whirlwinds of dust or debris, most frequent in arid regions. [line 32] a stag of ten A fine male deer, with impressive antlers. More specifically, a stag with ten tines or points on his antlers, five on each side. barren doe a female deer that has not bred. [line 34] snaffle-bars parts of the bit used in the mouth to control the horse. [line 38] fawn a young deer.

[line 40] red a chestnut or bright bay horse or mare. [line 44] cocked ready to fire. [line 46] jackals Small wild dogs. Usually hunting in packs, they are scavengers of carrion but will also eat small animals. Tabaqui, the jackal, figures in The Jungle Book, and is a despicable creature. [line 48] kite a bird of prey of the family Accipitridae which includes hawks and eagles, A kite named Chil�sometimes called Rann�figures in The Jungle Book. [line 50] broken meats fragments of food remaining after a meal. [line 67] a lifter�s dower a 'lifter' in this context is a cattle-stealer, a 'dower' (or dowry) is the money that is given with a bride to her husband. turquoise an opaque blue-green stone, much prized as jewellery. [line 68] �broidered embroidered. [line 79] White Queen Queen Victoria (1819-1901) Empress of India. [line 81] trooper a cavalryman, the equivalent of a private soldier in the infantry.

[line 82] Peshawur Capital of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, 11 miles (18 km ) east of the Khyber Pass, which provides the easiest route between the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan. [line 84] Oath of the Brother-in-Blood men who have sworn to treat each other as brothers partake in a ceremony in which their blood is mingled. [line 85] fire and new-cut sod Part of the ceremony. Further information will be appreciated. [line 86] Khyber knife a long Indian knife with a triangular, single-edged blade and the handle set off centre . See �With the Main Guard� in Soldiers Three p. 61 onwards. [line 86] the Wondrous Names of God 'He is Allah, The Creator, The Originator, The Fashioner, To Him belong the most Beautiful Names.

Whatever is in the Heavens and on Earth, Do Declare His Praises and Glory, And He is the Exalted in Might, The Wise.' [Qur�an 59:24] [line 89] the Quarter-Guard the main point of security in an Indian Army camp or garrison, providing an armed party�day and night�ready for instant action in emergency. The regimental colours, the armoury and the treasury would be kept in this building. together with a lock-up to hold soldiers charged with minor crimes like absence without leave, drunkenness etc. The Guard usually consisted of the guard commander (a Naik or Havildar) a second-in-command, six guards and perhaps a bugler. The guard turned out for inspection by visiting dignitaries, as Kipling recalled in Something of Myself (pp. 55/56) I am, by the way, one of the few civilians who have turned out a Quarter-Guard of Her Majesty's troops. It was on a chill winter morn, about 2 A.M.

at the Fort, and though I suppose I had been given the countersign on my departure from the Mess, I forgot it ere I reached the Main Guard, and when challenged announced mysel. spaciously as `Visiting Rounds.' When the men had clattered out I asked the Sergeant if he had ever seen a finer collection of scoundrels. That cost me beer by the gallon, but it was worth it. See also �With the Main Guard� in Soldiers Three, page 55, line 9. [line 90] feud a quarrel in which the members of hostile families or tribes murder each other, often carried on for generations. [lines 93-94] Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; David Gilmour writes (p. 89): 'The charge of racism is commonly accompanied by the quotation of these lines ... which imply that the peoples on opposite sides of the globe are so different that they will never understand each other until the Day of Judgement...

Yet the apparent message of these lines is contradicted by the rest of the verse which asserts that two men of equal courage and ability can be equals despite multitudinous differences of class, race, nation and continent. [D.G.] But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth! [J McG.] 'Never the twain shall meet' - the meaning and origin of this phrase Famous Last Words Browse phrases beginning with: Never the twain shall meet Meaning Two things which are so different as to have no opportunity to unite. Origin Twain derives from the Old English twegen, meaning two. The phrase never the twain shall meet was used by Rudyard Kipling, in his Barrack-room ballads, 1892: "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." There, Kipling is lamenting the gulf of understanding between the British and the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. It may well be that he coined the phrase - at least, I can't find an earlier citation of it in print.

"Oh, East is "East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet..." -Rudyard Kipling American Minute with Bill Federer "Oh, East is "East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet..." -Rudyard Kipling "Oh, East is East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet, Till earth and sky stand presently, At God's great judgment seat" wrote Rudyard Kipling in Ballad of East and West. India was called the "Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire." Since ancient times, India had approximately 20 percent of the world's population, speaking over 1,000 different languages and dialects. India drew its name from the Indus River, which came from the old Persian name " Hindus", derived from the old Sanskrit word " Sindhu," meaning "large body of trembling water," as the river cascaded from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. Evidence of habitation dates back to 3300 BC, with a Harappan civilization from 2600 to 1900 BC.

Famous Iron Age Vedic kingdoms were the Magadha (1200-321 BC), and Lord Mahavira (599-527 BC), during the time of Gautama Buddha. His Machiavellian royal advisor, Chanakya, strategically fanned hostilities between various Indian kingdoms allowing Chandragupta to take control. The Golden Age of India was during the Gupta Empire 320-550 AD. Marco Polo traveled from Europe across India on his way to China in 1271, where he worked for Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan. In 1398, an heir of Genghis Khan was Timur, or Tamerlane, who called the "Sword of Islam," conquered into India, killing an estimate 17 million.

Tamerlane's autobiographical memoir, Malfuzat-i-Timuri, composed in the Chaghatai Mongol language and translated into Persian by Abu Talib Husaini, stated: "About this time there arose in my heart the desire to lead an expedition against the infidels, and to become a ghazi, for it had reached my ears that the slayer of infidels is a ghazi, and if he is slain he becomes a martyr. It was on this account that I formed this resolution, but I was undetermined in my mind whether I should direct my expedition against the infidels of China or against the infidels and polytheists of India..." Tamerlane continued: "In this matter I sought an omen from the Qur'an, and the verse I opened upon was this, 'O Prophet, make war upon infidels and unbelievers, and treat them with severity' (Sura 66:9). My great officers told me that the inhabitants of Hindustan were infidels and unbelievers.

In obedience to the order of Almighty Allah I ordered an expedition against them." Tamerlane slaughtered over 100,000 in Delhi, India, instructing soldiers to return with a head in each hand, and piling them into pyramids of severed heads. The Malfuza-i-Timuri recorded that at Hardwar, Tamerlane's Muslim troops: "Displayed great courage and daring; they made their swords their banners, and exerted themselves in slaying the foe (during a bathing festival on the bank of the Ganges). They slaughtered many of the infidels, and pursued those who fled to the mountains. So many of them were killed that their blood ran down the mountains and plain, and thus (nearly) all were sent to hell. The few who escaped, wounded, weary, and half dead, sought refuge in the defiles of the hills.

Their property and goods, which exceeded all computation, and their countless cows and buffaloes, fell as spoil into the hands of my victorious soldiers." French historian and member of the French Academy, Rene' Grousset (1885-1952) published in his original edition of L'Empire Des Steppes: "Mongols were mere barbarians who killed simply because for centuries this had been the instinctive behavior of nomad herdsmen... To this ferocity Tamerlane added a taste for religious murder. He killed from Qur'anic piety. ("Il tuait par piete coranique") He represents a synthesis, probably unprecedented in history, of Mongol barbarity and Muslim fanaticism, and symbolizes that advanced form of primitive slaughter which is murder committed for the sake of an abstract ideology, as a duty and a sacred mission." Get the book What Every American Needs to Know about the Qur'an-A History of Islam & the United States Innovations from India went EAST to Mongolia and China and WEST to Persia and Europe. These included numerical characters, such as zero, decimals, textiles, cloth, dyes, incense clock, and the games of chess.

Along the trade routes, an estimated 2 million were killed by Muslim raiders, called "thugs," together with Hindu followers of Kali. They would join unsuspecting caravans and travel with them for a while, pretending to be their friends. After gaining their trust, thugs would distract their victims, sneak up from behind and strangle them to death with a noose or handkerchief. Thugs were careful to make sure every traveler in the group was buried so that their deeds would not be exposed. When Muslims finally cut off all land trade routes from Europe to India and China, Europeans looked for a sea route, beginning The Age of Discovery. Columbus thought he had sailed to India in 1492, so he named the inhabitants " Indians," and the Caribbean Sea, the " West Indies." In 1498, Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama finally reached the southern coast of India, colonizing the province of Gao. They encountered Christian churches in southern India which traced their origins back to the Apostle Thomas. These churches continued early Christian traditions until the Portuguese forced them to adopt European traditions.

In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane, founded the Muslim Mughal (Mogul) Empire in Northern India. Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in 1653 as a tomb for his beloved third wife Mumtaz Mahal. Legends persist that to prevent another building built to rival its beauty he had the workers' hands cut off. Dutch, French and Danish colonies were established in India until driven out by the British. The British East India Company was founded in 1600 and traded in valuable commodities such as tea, cotton, silk, indigo (blue) dye, salt, saltpetre (needed for gunpowder) and opium, which they forcibly imported into China, causing the Opium Wars. The British East India Company introduced the planting of tea from China into India. The British East India Company strategically fanned hostilities between various Indian kingdoms, supplying arms and ammunition to different. After the kingdoms were devastated, British East India Company forces could conquer both sides. This tactic was repeated till they controlled most of India by 1757.

A hundred years later, the people of India rebelled against the British East India Company, resulting in the British Crown taking direct control of India in 1858. Queen Victoria began using the title Empress of India in 1876. The introduction of the English language positioned India to become a leading economic power later in the 20th century. During this time, Rudyard Kipling was born in India on DECEMBER 30, 1865, in the city of Mumbai, which the British called Bombay, His grandparents on both sides were Methodist ministers. At the age of 5, Rudyard Kipling was sent back to England for schooling. Poor eyesight ended young Kipling's hopes of a British military career and in 1882, at the age of 16, Kipling returned to India as a journalist. He wrote for The Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, and in 1886, published his first collection Departmental Ditties.

Rudyard Kipling wrote captivating stories, such as: The Jungle Book (1894); The Man Who Would Be King (1888); Gunga Din (1890); Baa Baa Black Sheep, Georgie Porgie, and Captains Courageous (1897) . In 1896, Kipling moved his family back to England. In 1898, they began what would become a yearly winter holiday in South Africa. There Kipling gained first hand knowledge of the Boer War. Kipling declined King George V's offer of knighthood, Poet Laureate and Order of Merit, though he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. Kipling's daughter Josephine died of pneumonia at age six. Kipling's son John was killed in World War I at the Battle of Loos in 1915. He was 18 years old. In Recessional (1897), Kipling wrote: "Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre !

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet. Lest we forget-lest we forget!" In The Conundrum of the Workshops, Rudyard Kipling wrote: "Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow, And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago, And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through, By the favour of God we might know as much -- as our father Adam knew!" In The Last Chantey, Rudyard Kipling wrote: "Then cried the soul of the stout Apostle Paul to God: 'Once we frapped a ship, and she laboured woundily. There were fourteen score of these, And they blessed Thee on their knees, When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under Malta by the sea!'" Ronald Reagan, upon ending his term as President of the United States, gave a speech, December 13, 1988, in which he quoted Rudyard Kipling: "As I prepare to lay down the mantle of office...

I cannot help believe that what Rudyard Kipling said of another time and place is true today for America: 'We are at the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.' Thank you, and God bless you." " IF" Poets' Corner - Rudyard Kipling - Selected Works OH, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgement Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth! Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side, And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride: He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day, And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.

Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides: ``Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?'' Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar, ``If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are. At dusk he harries the Abazai---at dawn he is into Borair, But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare, So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly, By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tonuge of Jagai, But if he be passed the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then, For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men.

There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between, And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.'' The Colonel's son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he, With the mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell, and the head of a gallows-tree. The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat-- Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat. He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly, Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tonue of Jagai, Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back, And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack. He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide. ``Ye shoot like a soldier,'' Kamal said. ``Show now if ye can ride.'' It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dust-devils go, The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.

The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above, But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars, as a maiden plays with a glove. There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between, And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen. They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn, The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn. The dun he fell at a water-course--in a woeful heap fell he, And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free. He has knocked the pistol out of his hand--small room was there to strive, ``'Twas only by favour of mine,'' quoth he, ``ye rode so long alive: There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree, But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.

If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low, The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row: If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high, The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly.'' Lightly answered the Colonel's son:--``Do good to bird and beast, But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast. If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away, Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay. They will feed their horse on the standing crop, their men on the garnered grain, The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain. But if thou thinkest the price be fair,--thy brethren wait to sup, The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn,--howl, dog, and call them up! And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack, Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back!'' Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.

``No talk shall be of dogs,'' said he, ``when wolf and grey wolf meet. May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath; What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?'' Lightly answered the Colonel's son: ``I hold by the blood of my clan: Take up the mare for my father's gift,--by God, she has carried a man.!'' The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast, ``We be two strong men,'' said Kamal then, ``but she loveth the younger best. So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded rein, My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain.'' The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end, ``Ye have taken the one from a foe,'' said he; ``will ye take the mate from a friend?'' ``A gift for a gift,'' said Kamal straight, ``a limb for the risk of limb.

Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!'' With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain-crest-- He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance at rest. ``Now here is thy master,'' Kamal said, ``who leads a troop of the Guides, And thou must ride at his left side as shield on the shoulder rides. Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed, Thy life is his--thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.

So thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine, And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line, And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power-- Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur.'' They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found not fault, They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt: They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God. The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun, And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one. And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear-- There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer. ``Ha' done! ha' done!'' said the Colonel's son. ``Put up the steel at your sides!

Last night ye had struck at a Border thief--to-night 'tis a man of the Guides!'' Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgement Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth! Rudyard Kipling LORD, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, An', taught by time, I tak' it so---exceptin' always Steam. From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God--- Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod. John Calvin might ha' forged the same---enorrmous, certain, slow--- Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame---my ``Institutio.'' I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please; I'll stand the middle watch up here---alone wi' God an' these My engines, after ninety days o' rase an' rack an' strain Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again.

Slam-bang too much---they knock a wee---the crosshead-gibs are loose, But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse. ... Fine, clear an'dark---a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o' sight, An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night! His wife's at Plymouth. ... Seventy---One---Two---Three since he began--- Three turns for Mistress Ferguson ... and who's to blame the man? There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow, Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago. (The year the Sarah Sands was burned. Oh roads we used to tread, Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws--fra' Govan to Parkhead!) Not but that they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say: ``Good morn, McAndrew! Back again?

An' how's your bilge to-day?'' Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair To drink Madeira wi' three Earls---the auld Fleet Engineer That started as a boiler-whelp---when steam and he were low. I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow! Ten pound was all the pressure then---Eh! Eh!---a man wad drive; An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder sixty-five! We're creepin' on wi' each new rig---less weight an' larger power; There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty miles an hour! Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began Leaves me na doot for the machine: but what about the man? The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea: Four time the span from Earth to Moon. ... How far, O Lord from thee That wast beside him night an' day? Ye mind my first typhoon? It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon.

Three feet were on the stokehold-floor---just slappin' to an' fro--- An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show. Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns---deep in my soul an' black, An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back. The sins o' four an' forty years, all up an' down the seas. Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. ... Forgie's our trespasses! Nights when I'd come on to deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze, The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel-stays; Years when I raked the Ports wi' pride to fill my cup o' wrong--- Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong-Kong! Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode--- Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road! An' waur than all---my crownin' sin---rank blasphemy an' wild. I was not four and twenty then---Ye wadna judge a child?

I'd seen the Tropics first that run---new fruit, new smells, new air--- How could I tell---blinf-fou wi' sun--- the Deil was lurkin' there? By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes; By night thos soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies, In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets--- An ijjit grinnin' in a dream---for shells an' parrakeets, An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried--- Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Cheif put overside.

Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca', Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: ``McAndrew, Come awa'!'' Firm, clear an' low---no haste, no hate---the ghostly whisper went, Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument: ``Your mither's god's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel', ``Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell. ``They mak' him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt, ``A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt.

``Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod, ``But come wi' Us'' (Now who were They?) ``an' know the Leevin' God, ``That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest, ``But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast.'' An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice--- For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice. 'Twas on me like a thunderclap---it racked me through an' through--- Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an' new--- The Sin against the Holy Ghost? ... An' under all, our screw. That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell. thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell--- Third on the Mary Gloster then, and first that night in Hell! Yet was Thy Hand beneath my head, about my feet Thy Care--- Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair, But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer! ...

We wared na run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire, An' I was drowsin' on the hatch---sick---sick wi' doubt an' tire: ``Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire!'' Ye mind that word? Clear as gongs---again, an' once again, When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'-chain: An', by Thy Grace, I had the light to see my duty plain. Light on the engine-room---no more---bright as our carbons burn. I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past return! Obsairve! Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard--- Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord, But---average fifteen hunder souls safe-born fra' port to port--- I am o' service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought? Maybe they steam from Grace to Wrath---to sin by folly led--- It isna mine to judge their path---their lives are on my head. Mine at the last---when all is done it all comes back to me, The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea.

We'll tak' one stretch---three weeks an odd by ony road ye steer--- Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington---ye need an engineer. Fail there---ye've time to weld your shaft---ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke; Or make Kergueen under sail---three jiggers burned wi' smoke! An' home again---the Rio run: it's no child's play to go Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe an' blow. The beergs like kelpies oversde that girn an' turn an' shift Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the big South drift. (Hail, Snow and Ice that praise the Lord. I've met them at their work, An wished we had anither route or they another kirk.) Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for though Thy Power brings All skill to naught, Ye'll underatand a man must think o' things.

Then, at the last, we'll get to port an' hoist their baggage clear--- The passengers, wi' gloves an' canes---an' this is what I'll hear: ``Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The tender's comin' now.'' While I go testin' follower-bolts an' watch the skipper bow. They've words for every one but me---shake hands wi' half the crew, Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they never knew. An' yet I like the wark for all we've dam' few pickin's here--- No pension, an' the most we'll earn's four hunder pound a year. Better myself abroad? Maybe. I'd sooner starve than sail Wi' such as call a snifter-rod ross. ... French for nightingale. Commeesion on my stores? Some do; but I cannot afford To lie like stewards wi' patty-pans. I'm older than the Board. A bonus on the coal I save? Ou ay, the Scots are close, But when I grudge the strength Ye gave I'll grudge their food to those.

(There's bricks that I might recommend---an' clink the firebars cruel. No! Welsh---Wangarti at the worst---an' damn all patent fuel!) Inventions? Ye must stay in port to mak' a patent pay. My Deeferential Valve-Gear taught me how that business lay. I blame no chaps wi' clearer heads for aught they make or sell. I found that I could not invent an' look to these as well. So, wrestled wi' Apollyon---Nah!---fretted like a bairn--- But burned the workin'-plans last run, wi' all I hoped to earn. Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant to me--- E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. ... Below there! Oiler! What's your wark? Ye find it runnin' hard? Ye needn't swill the cup wi' oil---this isn't the Cunard! Ye thought? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again! Tck! Tck! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain!

Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee, Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee. The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro, Till for the sake of---well, a kiss---I tak' 'em down below. That minds me of our Viscount loon---Sir Kenneth's kin---the chap Wi' Russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap. I showed him round last week, o'er all---an' at the last says he: ``Mister McAndrew, Don't you think steam spoils romance at sea?'' Damned ijjit! I'd been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws, Manholin', on my back---the cranks three inches off my nose. Romance! Those first-class passengers they like it very well, Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't poets tell? I'm sick of all their quirks an' turns---the loves an' doves they dream--- Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o' Steam!

To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra sublime Whaurto---uplifted like the Just---the tail-rods mark the time. The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an' heaves, An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves: Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides, Till---hear that note?---the rod's return whings glimmerin' through the guides. They're all awa'! True beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamos. Interdependence absolute, forseen, ordained, decreed, To work, Ye'll note, at ony tilt an' every rate o' speed. Fra' Skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed.

An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made; While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust-block says: ``Not unto us the praise, or man---not unto us the praise!'' Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson---theirs an' mine: ``Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline!'' Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roarin' they arose, An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' the blows. Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer strain, Till even first-class passengers could tell the meanin' plain! But no one cares except mysel' that serve an' understand My seven thousand horse-power here. Eh Lord! They're grand---they're grand! Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, Were Ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good? Not so!

O' that warld-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man---the Arrtifex! That holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, An' by that light---now, mark my word---we'll build the Perfect Ship. I'll never last to judge her lines, or take her curve---not I. But I ha' lived an' I ha' worked. Be thanks to Thee, Most High! An' I ha' done what I ha' done---judge Thou if ill or well--- Always Thy grace preventin' me. ... Losh! Yon's the ``Stand-by'' bell. Pilot so soon? His flare it is. The mornin'-watch is set. Well, God be thanked, as I was sayin', I'm no Pelagian yet. Now, I'll tak' on. ... 'Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought What your good leddy costs in coal? ... I'll burn 'em down to port. Rudyard Kipling

Question: Who wrote "East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet"
Answer: RUDYARD KIPLING