The title is from Kipling, of course, as is the epigraph, but it is Kipling footnoted by Wilfred Scawen Blunt, 'The White man's Burden is the burden of his cash'. In these days, when publishers seem eager to publish anthologies on every conceivable subject, and when the nature of the British Empire is a source of fascination and debate at ... Read moreacademic and colour supplement and more popular levels as well, it is surprising that we have had to wait so long for this 'cross-section of British poetry in which the Empire was the burden of the song'. It was worth the wait... The expected and familiar are all here, the set-pieces and the party-pieces and those that (sometimes undeservedly) have become the stock of jokes and gibes. But there is much unfamiliar material here, and some interesting juxtapositions are created by the choice of arrangement by chronology, rather than by author or theme, which encourages the reading of each poem in the context of the historical moment of its production. This is a valuable source book, It is also a good read - I couldn't decide whether to keep it in the study or by the bed. (Terry Barringer, Royal Commonwealth Society Collections, Cambridge University Library, African Research and Documentation, No. 78, 1998) Show Less