KIPLING, Rudyard (1865-1936). Autograph manuscript signed ("Rudyard Kipling"), n.p., n.d.

Three pages, 230 x 190mm, with penciled marginalia in another hand (horizonal creases), matted and framed with a portrait.

Kipling pens a fair copy of his appeal for unity among English-speakers in the British Empire. The thirteen-stanza poem, albeit cringingly chauvinistic by today's standards, makes for an interesting time-piece—evoking the sheer confidence and bravado that was the British Empire at the height of its power. Composed in 1894 and published in the London Times in 1895, the poem celebrates those of English descent born in the British colonies and dominions. A later owner has taken the time to identify the places to which Kipling alludes including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and India. And as the poem concerns England, it of course alludes to drinking: "We drank to the Queen—God bless her! We've drunk to our mother's land; We've drunk to our English Brother (and we hope he'll understand) We've drunk as much as we're able and the cross swings low to the dawn Last toast—and your foot on the table! A health to the native-born!"