“The Prodigal Son” by Rudyard Kipling, contributed by Richard Rogers (2025)
Kipling’s poem offers a reinterpretation of this narrative. It is presented as a meditation by the younger son, who contrasts the cold reception he receives upon returning home with the simpler, freer, and strangely happier life he once knew feeding pigs.
While the biblical account ends with the father joyfully reaffirming the value of his son’s return—“for this son of mine was dead and is alive again”—Kipling’s version deviates sharply. The notion that the Prodigal might return to the Yards rather than remain at home is entirely Kipling’s own invention, injecting the story with a profound sense of estrangement and unresolved loss.
Here come I to my own again,
Fed, forgiven, and known again,
Claimed by bone of my bone again
And cheered by flesh of my flesh.
The fatted calf is dressed for me,
But the husks have greater zest for me,
I think my pigs will be best for me,
So I’m off to the Yards afresh.
I never was very refined, you see,
(And it weighs on my brother’s mind, you see)
But there’s no reproach among swine, d’you see,
For being a bit of a swine.
So I’m off with wallet and staff to eat
The bread that is three parts chaff to wheat,
But glory be!— there’s a laugh to it,
Which isn’t the case when we dine.
My father glooms and advises me,
My brother sulks and despises me,
And Mother catechises me
Till I want to go out and swear.
And, in spite of the butler’s gravity,
I know that the servants have it I
Am a monster of moral depravity,
And I’m damned if I think it’s fair!
I wasted my substance, I know I did,
On riotous living, so I did,
But there’s nothing on record to show I did
Worse than my betters have done.
They talk of the money I spent out there–
They hint at the pace that I went out there–
But they all forget I was sent out there
Alone as a rich man’s son.
So I was a mark for plunder at once,
And lost my cash (can you wonder?) at once.
But I didn’t give up and knock under at once,
I worked in the Yards for a spell,
Where I spent my nights and days with hogs,
And shared their milk and maize with hogs,
Till, I guess, I have learned what pays with hogs
And—I have that knowledge to sell!
So back I go to my job again,
Not so easy to rob again,
Not quite so ready to sob again
On any neck that’s around.
I’m leaving, Pater. Good-bye to you!
God bless you, Mater! I’ll write to you!
I wouldn’t be impolite to you,
But, Brother, you are a hound!
Kipling’s Prodigal Son suffers a more tragic loss than death, a kind of living exile: the denial of forgiveness and the final closing of the familial door. Estranged from the role that once defined him, he is no longer a “son” in any meaningful sense; he has lost his identity. He has also lost his home and his sense of belonging: the house he returns to is physically familiar but spiritually foreign, and the warmth of home is replaced by cold silence and rejection. Unlike the biblical story, here forgiveness is withheld, creating a further loss: the loss of redemption. The “Yards” (where the prodigal son worked feeding hogs) are recalled almost fondly as a place of freedom, not shame—a deeper exile. Home becomes the true place of suffering, not a refuge. This is a prodigal who returns, but is not received. Loss here is not of money or reputation—it is the loss of reconciliation, of love withheld, and of a soul shut out.