As it was in the beginning Is to-day official sinning And shall be for evermore ...
This initial poem in ‘Departmental Ditties’, Kipling’s first volume of verse, summarises his critical opinion on how society operates – a view honed by his observations of the workings of the British Raj administration in Simla, India’s summer capital at the time. Anyone who knows bureaucracy from the inside will probably find it too true to be funny.
The illustration, ‘Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh’s Granaries’ (1874), is by Lawrence Alma Tadema – (Joseph’s sudden rise / to Comptroller of Supplies / Was a fraud of monstrous size…)
A General Summary
We are very slightly changed From the semi-apes who ranged India's prehistoric clay; He that drew the longest bow Ran his brother down, you know, As we run men down to-day. "Dowb", the first of all his race, Met the Mammoth face to face On the lake or in the cave: Stole the steadiest canoe, Ate the quarry other slew, Died - and took the finest grave. When they scratched the reindeer-bone, Some one made the sketch his own, Filched it from the artist - then, Even in those early days, Won a simple Viceroy's praise Through the toil of other men. Ere they hewed the Sphinx's visage Favouritism governed kissage, Even as it does in this age. Who doubts that "the secret hid Under Cheops' Pyramid" Was that the contractor did Cheops out of several millions? Or that Joseph's sudden rise To Comptroller of Supplies Was a fraud of monstrous size On King Pharaoh's swart civilians? Thus, the artless songs I sing Do not deal with anything New or never said before. As it was in the beginning Is to-day official sinning, And shall be for evermore.