Kicking Ass! Kipling's "The Vampire"

While perusing really really old material today so that you, beloved readers, wouldn't need to do it, I ran into three responses to Kipling's "The Vampire." Then I ran into several more. Then I dug deeper yet and discovered there are more than 2200 extant and readable recountings and responses to Kipling's "The Vampire." And I searched only from 1897 to 1940.

The reactions run from story to play to poem and range from vampire as economic metaphor to vampire political statements to vampiric gendered roles to vampire at work. I've rarely seen such a widespread use of vampire.

The version I'll sharing this time is by William Rex, called -- you guessed it! -- "The Vampire!"
It is from a magazine called The painter and decorator, Volume 23 -- 1909

The Vampire (Laborer’s Version.)

(With Apologies to Kipling)

A fool there was and he toiled away

(Even as you and I).
For a cage and crumb, with nothing to say --
(Some call it worse than death grim and gray) —
But the fool he called it his full day's pay—

(Even as you and I).

Oh, the life we waste and the strife we taste—
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to this world, which does not know—

(And now we know that it never can know)
And does not understand.

A fool there was and he lived a slave—

(Even as you and I.)
To a master who drove him remorseless to grave—
(And the master did not heed the wounds he gave)—

But the fool never dreamt that his life he could save

(Even as you and I).

Oh, the miseries he lived for the crumbs he received –

And the kicks which a dog would abhor:

He took from the man who cared not to know why –

(And now we know he never cared why)

And did not understand.

The fool was stripped of his bloodsucked hide –

(Even as you and I).

Which he might have saved if he only had tried –

But a fool is a fool, though wise men he may chide)

So some of him lived, but the best of him dies

(Even as you and I).

And it isn’t the blow, or the red-blood flow,

That stings like a white-hot brand –

It’s coming to know that he never did try

To conquer his lord and make him know why –

And force him to understand.

(Sweet Goth here. Doesn't a poem kick ass when it can be re-purposed so endlessly yet still have relevance in its new incarnation?)