The Kingdom
Now we are come to our Kingdom,And the State is thus and thus;Our legions wait at the Palace gate---Little it profits us,Now we are come to our Kingdom!
Now we are come to our Kingdom,And the Crown is ours to take--With a naked sword at the Council board,And under the throne the Snake,Now we are come to our Kingdom!
Now we are come to our Kingdom,And the Realm is ours by right,With shame and fear for our daily cheer,And heaviness at night,Now we are come to our Kingdom!
Now we are come to our Kingdom,But my love's eyelids fall.All that I wrought for, all that I fought for,Delight her nothing at all.My crown is of withered leaves,For she sits in the dust and grieves.Now we are come to our Kingdom!
Words in this poem
- heaviness n.
- The state or quality of being heavy in its various senses; weight; sadness; sluggishness; oppression; thickness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Kingdom is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, The Kingdom, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/the-kingdom.html, id L20283.
Form and metre
The Kingdom is 22 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AB-BA kingdomA · thusB · gate · usB · kingdomA
- 2 AB-BA kingdomA · takeB · board · snakeB · kingdomA
- 3 AB-BA kingdomA · rightB · cheer · nightB · kingdomA
- 4 AB-BCCA kingdomA · fallB · for · allB · leavesC · grievesC · kingdomA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Now we are come to our Kingdom, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| And the State is thus and thus; | 7 | ······· |
| Our legions wait at the Palace gate--- | 9 | //˘···/˘· |
| Little it profits us, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| And the Crown is ours to take-- | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| With a naked sword at the Council board, | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| And under the throne the Snake, | 7 | ······· |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| And the Realm is ours by right, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| With shame and fear for our daily cheer, | 9 | ·····//˘· |
| And heaviness at night, | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| But my love's eyelids fall. | 6 | ···/·· |
| All that I wrought for, all that I fought for, | 10 | ·········· |
| Delight her nothing at all. | 7 | ˘/·/˘·· |
| My crown is of withered leaves, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| For she sits in the dust and grieves. | 8 | ········ |
| Now we are come to our Kingdom! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.