What is the dramatic situation of the poem? (What is taking place literally?)

Kipling had written of the jubilee that he had "a certain optimism that scared me" about Britain's global prospects. There had recently been problems in South Africa that would expand into even greater difficulties; a raid into Afrikan territories to inspire British workers to revolt against the Boers in South Africa had failed, leaving the leader imprisoned and many British dead. Kipling wrote of this poem in his autobiography, saying it was in the nature of a nuzzur-wazu, or an averter of the evil eye.

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