Boots (poem) Boots (poem) "Boots" is a poem by English author and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). It was first published in 1903, in his collection "The Five Nations". "Boots" imagines the repetitive thoughts of a British Army infantryman marching by forced marches in South Africa during the Second Boer War (which had ended in 1902). It has been said that if the first four words in each line are read at the rate of two words to the second, that gives the time to which the British foot soldier was accustomed to march. The poem was set to music for low male
The Grave (poem) of their anatomy is unimpeachable, and the moral expression dignified and masculine". However, Johnstone was not wholly positive in his criticism, observing that in the close of the poem there is "short-coming, if not absolute failure", and that the final triumph of Resurrection over the powers of Death and Hell were "felt to be wanting". Rather than "the rapturous exultation of the true poet", the close is "in that tone of sober confidence which might have found place in any eloquent sermon". The most famous publication of the poem was by Robert Hartley Cromek, in part because it occasioned an