Failure
One brought her Fire from a distant place,
And She—what should she know of it?—
She took His offering with the same untroubled look
Of peace upon her face.
‘And I have brought it of my best,’ quoth he,
‘By barren deserts and a frozen land.
What recompense?’ She could not understand,
But let the bright light be.
‘A kindly gift,’ the answer broke at length,
‘A kindly gift. We thank you. What is this
That fiercer than all household fire is,
And gathereth in strength?
Strange fires? Take them hence with you, O sir!
Presage of coming woe we dimly feel.’
Sudden She crushed the embers ’neath her heel,—
And all light went with Her.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 15, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
Rudyard Kipling’s “Failure” was published in Echoes (Civil and Military Gazette Press, 1884), a collaborative collection between Kipling and his sister, Alice MacDonald Fleming. For The Kipling Society’s online New Readers Guide, scholars John Radcliffe and John McGivering describe the poem, writing, “The poem tells of a man who brings fire to his Lady, his best offering. She does not understand it, but at first accepts it gratefully as a kindly gift. But then, alarmed by its strangeness and the fear of trouble it might bring, she rejects it, crushing the embers beneath her foot and bidding the despairing offerer to depart. The ancient myth of the bringing of fire comes from the legend of Prometheus, the Titan in Greek mythology who created Man and stole fire from Mount Olympus to give it to Earth. At least four ancient legends tell of his conflict with Zeus, the King of the gods, and the terrible punishment he suffered; chained to a rock, his liver devoured daily by a giant eagle, only to be regenerated by night, through his immortality.”
