Many poems and songs lyrics have been written about colonialism, the British Empire and other related themes. This lesson invites you to explore a few selected poems and song lyrics. You may find that you want to explore more poems and songs by one or more of these writers in preparation for an individual oral or HL Essay.

1. Place each poem on a different table in your classroom. Get into 5 groups. As a group circulate around the room to each table, spending 10 minutes at each table. As a group, read each poem and complete a diagram, like the one below. Discuss your answers to the questions before writing short answers in each column. Before you rotate to the next table, read what others have written on their diagrams.  



You, me, us, them	Where and when	Why
Who are the speakers of these words? To whom are they speaking? How is an 'us' and 'them' relationship established?	In what ways do 'time' and 'place' play a role in constructing meaning in these poems?	Why do you think these poets wrote these words in this order?




Text 1: 'The White Man's Burden' by Rudyard Kipling, 1899

TAKE up the White Man's burden - 
Send forth the best ye breed - 
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child. 

Take up the White Man's burden - 
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain. 

Take up the White Man's burden -
The savage wars of peace -
Fill full the mouth of famine
And bid the sickness cease; 
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden -
No tawdry rule of kings, 
But toil of serf and sweeper - 
The tale of common things. 
The ports ye shall not enter, 
The roads ye shall not tread, 
Go make them with your living, 
And mark them with your dead ! 

Take up the White Man's burden -
And reap his old reward, 
The blame of those ye better, 
The hate of those ye guard - 
The cry of hosts ye humour 
(Ah slowly !) towards the light:- 
"Why brought ye us from bondage, 
"Our loved Egyptian night ?" 

Take up the White Man's burden -
Ye dare not stoop to less - 
Nor call too loud on Freedom 
To cloak your weariness; 
By all ye cry or whisper, 
By all ye leave or do, 
The silent sullen peoples 
Shall weigh your Gods and you. 

Take up the White Man's burden -
Have done with childish days - 
The lightly proffered laurel, 
The easy, ungrudged praise. 
Comes now, to search your manhood 
Through all the thankless years, 
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom, 
The judgement of your peers.

Text 2: 'Redemption Song' by Bob Marley, 1979

Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pits

But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill di book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind
Oh, have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall dey kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill di book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs

All I ever had
Redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Songs of freedom

Text 3: 'Ozymandias' by Percy Byssche Shelley, 1817

I met a traveller from an antique land,


Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone


Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,


Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,


And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,


Tell that its sculptor well those passions read


Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,


The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;


And on the pedestal, these words appear:


My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;


Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!


Nothing beside remains. Round the decay


Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare


The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Text 4: 'This Kingdom' by Grace Nichols, 1984

This Kingdom Will Not Reign
Forever

Cool winds blow
softly

in brilliant sunshine
fruits pulse
flowers flame

mountains shade to
purple

the Great House
with its palm and orange
groves

sturdy

and the sea encircling
all
is a spectrum of the blue
jewels
shimmering and skirting

But Beware

Soft winds can turn
volatile
can mearge with rains
can turn hurricane

Mountains can erupt
sulphur springs bubbling quick
and hot

like bile spilling
from a witch's cauldron

Swamps can send plagues-
dysentery, fevers

plantations can perish

lands turn barren

And the white man
no longer at ease
with the faint drum/
beat

no longer indifferent
to the sweating sun/
heat

can leave exhausted
or
turn his thoughts
to death

And we
the rage growing
like the chiggers
in our feet

can wait
or
take our freedom

whatever happens

This Kingdom Will Not Reign
Forever

Text 5: 'Song of the Red Man' by Henry Clay Work, 1876

When the palefaces came in their whitewing'd canoes,
Long ago, from the sun-rising sea
When they ask'd for a lodge, and we did not refuse
Happy then was the red man, and free.
He could then choose a spot for his wigwam to stand,
Where the forest was crowded with game;
For the blue-rolling lake and the ever smiling land
Were his own till the palefaces came
For the broad grassy plains and the forests deep and grand,
Were his own till the palefaces came.

They came! they came! like the fierce prairie flame,
Sweeping on to the sun-setting shore:
Gazing now on its waves, but a handful of braves,
We shall join in the the chase nevermore
Till we camp on the plains where the Great Spirit reigns,
We shall join in the chase nevermore.

We receiv'd them with gladness, as Sons of the Sky
We believ'd them of heavenly birth;
But alas! to our sorrow we found by and by,
That like us they were born of the earth.
By their false traders wrong'd, by their firewater craz'd,
There was no one our braves to restrain;
So the swift flew, and the tomahawk was raise'd
While we both mourn'd the blood of our slain;
So the smoke-wreath did cease from the calumet of peace,
While we both mourn'd the blood of our slain.

When the oaks, pines and cedars were fell'd to the ground,
'Twas a sight that with sorrow we saw;
For the game fled affrighted, and no food was found
For the old chief, the papoose and squaw.
Driven westward we came, but the paleface was here,
With his sharp axe and death-flashing gun;
And his great iron horse is rumbling in the rear
"O, my brave men!" your journey is done.
Like the beaver and elk like the buffalo and deer
"O, my brave men!" your journey is done.



2. After having read all of these poems, work as a class to make a list of global issues that are relevant to the poems. Study each group's diagram to inform your list.


3. Break up into smaller groups. Assign each group a different poem. Which global issue, from your class' list of issues are present in your group's poem? Where do you see evidence of this?


4. Visit the page on poems in the text types section of this support site. Are there any poetic, stylistic or structural devices that you can identify in your group's poem? What are the effects of these devices on the reader? Take notes on your group discussion.


5. In your group, (re)visit the 18 question from the areas of exploration and select 2-3 questions that relevant to your poem. Discuss your poem in relation to these questions. Take notes on your group discussion.


6. Write 2-3 discussion questions, which refer to 2-3 of the concepts from this course: identity, perspective, representation, culture, transformation, creativity and communication. 


7. Give a 5-minute, group presentation on your group's poem, in which you comment on: the global issues that are presented in your poem, the kinds of stylistic and structural features that you found in your poem and the AoE questions that you discussed as a group. Ask your classmates the questions that you wrote, using one or more of the concepts from this course, in order to initiate a classroom discussion on your poem.