The Sweepers

"The Sweepers" is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), and set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar in 1917, as the fourth of a set of four war-related songs on nautical subjects for which he chose the title "The Fringes of the Fleet".

Like the others in the cycle, it is intended for four baritone voices: a solo and chorus. It was originally written with orchestral accompaniment, but was later published to be sung with piano accompaniment.

The poem was called by Kipling "Mine Sweepers", and is about the British ships called minesweepers which cleared the seas of enemy mines in World War I.

References

Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Elgar (Oxford University Press, 1968) ISBN 0-19-315414-5

External links

Sea Warfare - The Fringes of the Fleet Notes by Alastair Wilson

Rudyard Kipling

Novels	The Light that Failed (1891) Captains Courageous (1896) Kim (1901)

Collections	Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) Soldiers Three (1888) The Story of the Gadsbys (1888) In Black and White (1888) The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (1888) Under the Deodars (1888) Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888) From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889) Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry) The Jungle Book (1894) "Mowgli's Brothers" "Kaa's Hunting" "Tiger! Tiger!" "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" The Second Jungle Book (1895) "Letting in the Jungle" "Red Dog" All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895) The Day's Work (1898) Stalky & Co. (1899) Just So Stories (1902) Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) Rewards and Fairies (1910) The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction) Debits and Credits (1926) Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)

Poems	"The Absent-Minded Beggar" "The Ballad of the "Clampherdown"" "The Ballad of East and West" "The Bell Buoy" "The Betrothed" "Big Steamers" "Cold Iron" "Danny Deever" "The Female of the Species" "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" "Gentleman ranker" "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" "Gunga Din" "Hymn Before Action" "If—" "The King's Pilgrimage" "The Last of the Light Brigade" "The Lowestoft Boat" "Mandalay" "My Boy Jack" "Recessional" "A Song in Storm" "Sons of Martha" "Submarines" "The Sweepers" "Ubique" "The White Man's Burden" "The Widow at Windsor"

Short Stories	".007" "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly" "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" "The Butterfly that Stamped" "Consequences" "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin" "Cupid's Arrows" "Drums of the Fore and Aft" "False Dawn" "A Germ-Destroyer" "His Chance in Life" "His Wedded Wife" "In the House of Suddhoo" "Kidnapped" "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris" "Lispeth" "The Man Who Would Be King" "Miss Youghal's Sais" "The Mother Hive" "Ortheris" "The Other Man" "The Rescue of Pluffles" "The Ship that Found Herself" "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo" "The Taking of Lungtungpen" "Three and – an Extra" "The Three Musketeers" "Thrown Away" "Toomai of the Elephants" "Watches of the Night" "Yoked with an Unbeliever" "The Broken Link Handicap"

Related	Bibliography Bateman's home Indian Railway Library The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer Iron Ring The Law of the Jungle Aerial Board of Control My Boy Jack (1997 play) My Boy Jack (2007 film)

Family	Elsie Bambridge (daughter) John Kipling (son) John Lockwood Kipling (father) MacDonald sisters (mother's family) Stanley Baldwin (cousin) Edward Burne-Jones (uncle) Edward Poynter (uncle) Alfred Baldwin (uncle)

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