The Beginnings

"The Beginnings" is a 1917 poem by the English writer Rudyard Kipling.

The poem is about how the English people, although naturally peaceful, slowly become filled with a hate which will lead to the advent of a new epoch.

The last line of every stanza ends with "... the English began to hate".

The context is the anti-German sentiment in Britain during World War I.

The poem first appeared in Kipling's 1917 collection A Diversity of Creatures, where it accompanies the short story "Mary Postgate".