As the year comes to an end — a low, dishonest year, grinding down to its low, dishonest end — we need our valediction: our parting words, our taking leave. Maybe it need be nothing more than a metaphorical shaking off from our feet the dust of 2023, a muttered good riddance. Yet maybe it should be more considered, more thoughtful. Maybe we should revisit “Recessional,” the 1897 poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936).

Kipling has appeared in the Sun’s Poem of the Day feature several times over the past two years, with “The Way through the Woods,” “When Earth’s Last Picture Is Painted,” “Tommy,” and “The Gods of the Copybook Headings.” Written for Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee — actually, written at the close of the Jubilee: a reflection on the ceremonies and military parades that had filled London — “Recessional” was unexpectedly somber and prophetic.

In five six-line stanzas of tetrameter, rhymed ababcc, Kipling warns that arrogance, so proud of British power in the largest empire the world has ever known, will end in the collapse of power: “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!”

A call for humility and surrender to God, the poem urges us to recognize that there will survive only “Thine ancient sacrifice, / An humble and a contrite heart” — a reference to the the Miserere of Psalm 51: “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” It is, in truth, a recessional, offered here in the Sun for Kipling’s December 30 birthday: a hymn for the end of a church service, a reminder that all must fade away except the soul and God.

Recessional
by Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers, known of old,
   Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
   Dominion over palm and pine — 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
   The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
   An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

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!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
   Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
   Or lesser breeds without the Law — 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
   In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
   And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word — 
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.