Kipling certainly thought so. He grew up in India, worked there as a newspaperman and eventually became famous because of such books as Kim, the poem Gunga Din and other expressions of imperialism. Oddly enough, some of what he wrote concerned the British efforts to deal with Afghanistan. (The British weren't any better at it than the Russians or a good many others before or since.)

Kipling also lived during the time when the British took on the Boers of South Africa, former Dutch residents who were contending with England for control of that part of the Dark Continent. It wasn't exactly Iraq, but there were some similarities.

Kipling, and the British government of the time, thought the British had every right to teach the Boers who was boss in South Africa. So they did. The Boers taught them a thing or two in return. Kipling spent a few years in South Africa as a war correspondent.

Eventually he managed a grudging admiration for Paul Kruger, the Boer leader, but the man he really liked was Cecil Rhodes, the Empire builder for whom Rhodesia was named.

In fact, Kipling found very little to like in the world that wasn't British. Even though he married an American, he distrusted and disliked Americans and the United States. This may have been because one of his children died during the time he lived in New England. Whatever it was, after a couple of brief stays in the New World, he left, never to return.

But then he felt the same way about most of the rest of the world.

Although a lot of what he wrote seems dated now—especially what he wrote about the British in India—some of his works remain a part of classic English literature.

Captains Courageous, Jungle Stories, Twice Told Tales, The Man Who Would Be King and a host of others have become part of the literary canon. A lot of them have become successful movies, too, something Kipling probably wouldn't appreciate.

What drew my attention to him, however, wasn't this so much as one of his most famous poems, "Recessional."

"Recessional" was written late in the 19th century, during the closing days of Victoria's reign, when it was becoming apparent that Europe's colonial influence was waning. "Recessional" is a hymn to God asking Him to remember those who rule "over palm and pine" and not to forget when "the captain and the kings depart ... Lord of Hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget."

Kipling saw, although a lot of others didn't, that the days of the British Empire were numbered.

It's a lesson perhaps we ought to reread now and then, now that we, as everyone keeps reminding us, are the only superpower left in the world.

Whether God remembers the captains and the kings that once went out from the "tight little isle" to conquer the world for "queen and country" is an open question. And whether He will remember American soldiers as they wander through the Middle East also is unclear. We're still waiting to get the word.

But then God doesn't seem to remember any empire for very long, although Rome and Egypt might be exceptions. It's not simply that, as Shakespeare tells us "golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust"—it's that empires tend to turn on military might, not goodwill, and when the economic engine that drives the army peters out, decline is inevitable.

Of course, one may say the economic engine that is driving the American "empire" is a lot bigger and a lot more powerful than was that of the British Empire. Even the U.S. population is bigger and growing faster than that of Britain during the days of Victoria.

Still, in the words of the poem, we need to remember:

All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard—
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on thy people, Lord!
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

—Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to The Sun.