Seal Lullaby

Rudyard Kipling’s “Seal Lullaby” first appeared in 1893 in the story “The White Seal,” which was published in the English magazine National Review. The story became part of The Jungle Book, published in 1894, as one of the few stories that does not take place in India. The story shares themes and motifs with the other works in The Jungle Book, especially the use of anthropomorphism. “The White Seal” comments on community, vulnerability, and violence while using an imperiled seal colony as an allegorical setting. The poem “Seal Lullaby” appears in the story as a mother seal’s song of reassurance to her child.

Poet Biography

Though Rudyard Kipling’s legacy is complicated, his command of language and image remains inarguable. Kipling’s defense of Imperialism and his self-identified racism stand at odds with his compassion for the vulnerable, especially working class people and children.

Born in 1865 in modern-day Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), India, to British parents, Kipling often described his early years as idyllic and full of intense sensory memory. His family engaged with culture and the arts, but did not enjoy extensive financial resources. His father studied Indian architecture and served as a curator at the Lahore Museum. His mother’s sister married the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. As a child, Kipling and his sister attended boarding school in England, and Kipling returned to his beloved India at the age of 16 to work as a journalist for a few years before returning to England to make his career as a writer.

An inquisitive, observant man born in a time of Empire and Victorian ideas of noblesse oblige, Kipling’s world view originated in conflict and contradiction. While some of his most famous works like The Jungle Book, which includes the story “Seal Lullaby,” seem to honor and revere all forms of life, poems like “The White Man’s Burden” reveal the racism of the time and of Kipling himself.

During the 1890s while living in the United States in Brattleboro, Vermont, Kipling became friends with Theodore Roosevelt, another champion of the common man on the one hand and the extension of empire on the other. Living in Vermont gave Kipling the space and contentment to write some of his best known works; here, he wrote “The White Man’s Burden,” which he sent in admiration to Roosevelt. After experiencing global and familial tensions and tragedies, Kipling and his wife returned to England permanently.

When Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, his work earned him praise for its evidence of observation and for its imaginative qualities. The first English writer to win the Nobel, Kipling also remains the youngest winner of the prize to date.

Poem Text

Kipling, Rudyard. “Seal Lullaby.” 1893. Poets.org.

Summary

Rudyard Kipling’s “Seal Lullaby” appears in his story “The White Seal.” In the poem, a mother seal addresses her seal-child, assuring him of their safety. As if her baby’s eyes have already closed, the mother seal describes the night and the sea’s darkness, along with the rest of their surroundings. In the seals’ world, nature is magical, and the moon and a grove of trees protect them. The seal mother and her baby rest in a natural setting that resembles human comforts of home and security. Like a human mother, the seal mother addresses her baby directly, urging him to give in to his fatigue and take his rest, reassured that his mother and their surroundings will keep him safe. The threatening parts of nature take the form of storms and sharks, and the seal mother confirms that they will not disturb the baby seal while he sleeps. The final line of the poem replicates the rocking of a cradle or a baby seal in the gentle bobbing of the ocean waves.