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 Rhyming Poem The poet may have taken Book of Job, chapters 29 and 30, as its inspiration. The Rhyming Poem "The Rhyming Poem", also written as "The Riming Poem", is a poem of 87 lines found in the Exeter Book, a tenth-century collection of Old English poetry. It is remarkable for being no later than the 10th century, in Old English, and written in rhyming couplets. Rhyme is otherwise virtually unknown among Anglo-Saxon literature, which used alliterative verse instead. The poem is found on folios 94r-95v, in the third booklet of the Exeter Book, which may, or may not, be an indication