Poem of the Month: November 2023
Harp Song of the Dane Women, by Rudyard Kipling. LBC Poetry Series #2304
The Latent Book Club analyses Kipling’s Harp Song Of The Dane Women; a lament by those left behind.
Harp Song of the Dane Women, by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)
What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker? She has no house to lay a guest in— But one chill bed for all to rest in, That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in. She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you— Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you. Yet, when the signs of summer thicken, And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken, Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken— Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters. You steal away to the lapping waters, And look at your ship in her winter-quarters. You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables, The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables— To pitch her sides and go over her cables. Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow, And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow, Is all we have left through the months to follow. Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker ?
Latent Book Club Analysis
We first came across this powerful poem in Christopher Hitchens’ wonderful memoir, Hitch 22. It was one of the poems that Hitchen’s literary hero Jorge Luis Borges, whose eyesight was failing, asked Hitch to read to him when he went to visit him in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling himself (1865 - 1936) was born in Bombay, British India, and his early years were shaped by his exposure to British Indian culture. He moved moved to England aged six to attend school, but returned to India to work as a Journalist. Insipred by his upbringing, he composed some of his most famous works, including ‘The Jungle Book,’ ‘Kim,’ and ‘The Man Who Would Be King.’ His works often explored themes of colonialism, identity, and the clash of cultures. In 1907, Kipling became the first English-language writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although Kipling's life and work, is now often considered controversial due to his imperialistic views, remain a vital part of English literature.
The Harp Song of the Dane Women reflects some of these colonialist and clash of cultural themes. In it, the ‘Dane Women’ mourn, in impotent anguish, their husbands and fathers that have gone out to do what vikings do: pillage and plunder, leaving them at home wondering what their fate is.
How could you? the women ask, as we recognise the poem is much an indictment against the Dane Men, as a lament by their loved ones.
This is responsible for the poem’s melancholic tone. How could you? the women ask, as we recognise the poem is much an indictment against the Dane Men, as a lament by their loved ones. The Dane Women contemplate their fate: Perhaps their husbands will return in glory. Perhaps in defeat. Perhaps not at all. In the meantime, who will tend to the livestock? the children? Who will supply the food and look after the guests?
The accusatory tone is rendered all the more emphatic by the collective mode of the poem. It speaks for Dane women, with the use of the first-person plural, conveying a sense of unity and shared experience.
One senses, on a primal level, the emotional difficulties for those who are left behind. In our own way we experience this, to a smaller degree, in daily life. although our loved ones or friends are unlikely to yearly sail off to uncertain fate and potential peril on the high seas, Kipling captures something fundamental to the human experience. Who has not waved someone off at a station, or an airport, without feeling the sense off loss - for them more profound because they are the one staying behind? They are getting on with quotidien life; wheres for the person leaving, although they carry their emotions too, the process is somewhat easier. They are setting off to have their adventure. Their loved ones are left waiting for their return. All this gives this line its resonance:
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,
Is all we have left through the months to follow.
We can place ourselves with those who remain: listening to those fading oars, and the stillness, and even grief, that comes with them.
The poem also demonstrates, however, the resilience of those left behind in their grief. They play their harps. They keep going in spite of their loss. In fact the familiarity of the poem suggests, to a degree, that it is something they have become accustomed to.
In Harp Song Of the Dane Women, Kipling captures the bittersweet essence of the human experience in times of conflict and loss. It is a poem that rebukes and comforts those who have set off for war. It's a moving reflection on the enduring spirit of a people who, in the face of adversity, find solace and strength in their cultural traditions and the memory of those they have lost.
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