Recessional (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
- First Published: 1897
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Power, personal or social, Nineteenth century, God, Rulers, Sacrifice, Mortality, Great Britain, Victorian era or Victorianism, Prayers
The Poem
“Recessional” contains five stanzas of six lines each, with the first and third lines and the second and fourth rhyming. Following each quatrain there appears a rhymed couplet, which remains the same in the first four stanzas, then changes in the fifth. The closing couplet issues an even firmer admonition to underscore the warning that is extended in the previous refrain.
A recessional is a hymn or piece of music that is sung or played at the end of a religious service. From one perspective, the title dictates the form of the poem, which follows the...
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