A Death-Bed
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"A Death-Bed" is a poem by English poet and writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). It was first published in April 1919, in the collection The Years Between. Later publications identified the year of writing as 1918.[1][2] Kipling's only son, John, had been reported missing in action in 1915, during the Battle of Loos, leaving him grief-stricken. "A Death-Bed" has been variously described as "the most savage poem Kipling ever wrote",[1] "the chilling and pitiless masterpiece" [3] and as "overtly distasteful".[2]
"A Death-Bed" consists of 10 ABAB quatrains, with four stresses per line. It interweaves three voices:
- In quotation marks: an absolute monarch, suffering from throat cancer.
- In italics: a group of doctors attending the dying ruler.
- In plain text: a commentator.
