The dark eleventh hour

Draws on and sees us sold

To every evil power

We fought against of old.

Rebellion, rapine hate

Oppression, wrong and greed

Are loosed to rule our fate,

By England's act and deed.



The Faith in which we stand,

The laws we made and guard,

Our honour, lives, and land

Are given for reward

To Murder done by night,

To Treason taught by day,

To folly, sloth, and spite,

And we are thrust away.



The blood our fathers spilt,

Our love, our toils, our pains,

Are counted us for guilt,

And only bind our chains.

Before an Empire's eyes

The traitor claims his price.

What need of further lies?

We are the sacrifice.



We asked no more than leave

To reap where we had sown,

Through good and ill to cleave

To our own flag and throne.

Now England's shot and steel

Beneath that flag must show

How loyal hearts should kneel

To England's oldest foe.



We know the war prepared

On every peaceful home,

We know the hells declared

For such as serve not Rome --

The terror, threats, and dread

In market, hearth, and field --

We know, when all is said,

We perish if we yield.



Believe, we dare not boast,

Believe, we do not fear --

We stand to pay the cost

In all that men hold dear.

What answer from the North?

One Law, one Land, one Throne.

If England drive us forth

We shall not fall alone!




In this poem Kipling rails against the plans of the British parliament to hand control of the island of Hibernia over to an Irish government in Dublin.

Kipling was highly sympathetic to the people of Ulster (Northern Ireland), who overwhelmingly and democratically expressed their desire to remain part of the United Kingdom and maintain their British identity. In 1912 they declared, through the Ulster Covenant, that they would resist England's plan to hand over the entire island to Irish rule by any means necessary.

Kipling aided them in this effort not only by publishing works such as the above, but also by funding the importation of arms and equipment to allow them to resist both Irish aggression and English treachory.

Today, most of the counties of Ulster remain part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the overwhelming majority of the people identify themselves as British, despite the decades long campaign of violence and intimidation (in which thousands upon thousands of people have been killed) on the part of so-called "Irish Nationalist/Republicans".

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