Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)
Page 802
son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service,
love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?
For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields surffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern
skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August
haze —
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June’s long-lighted
days?
You’ll follow widening Rhodanus till vine an olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate’s triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!
You’ll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending
pines
Where, blue as any peacock’s neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You’ll go where laurel crowns are won, but — will you e’er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?
Let me work here for Britain’s sake — at any task you will —
A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops to drill.
Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite Border keep,
Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old messmates sleep.
Legate, I come to you in tears — My cohort ordered home!
I’ve served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?
Here is my heart, my soul, my mind — the only life I know.
I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!
Romulus and Remus
Canadian
Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care —
When first he planned his home,
What City should arise and bear
The weight and state of Rome.
A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp,
Checked by the Tiber flood,
He reared a wall around his camp
Of uninspired mud.
But when his brother leaped the Wall
And mocked its height and make,
He guessed the future of it all
And slew him for its sake.
Swift was the blow — swift as the thought
Which showed him in that hour
How unbelief may bring to naught
The early steps of Power.
Foreseeing Time’s imperilled hopes
Of Glory, Grace, and Love —
All singers, Caesars, artists, Popes —
Would fail if Remus throve,
He sent his brother to the Gods,
And, when the fit was o’er,
Went on collecting turves and clods
To build the Wall once more!
Route Marchin’
We’re marchin’ on relief over Injia’s sunny plains,
A little front o’ Christmas-time an’ just be’ind the Rains;
Ho! get away you bullock-man, you’ve ‘eard the bugle blowed,
There’s a regiment a-comin’ down the Grand Trunk Road;
With its best foot first
And the road a-sliding past,
An’ every bloomin’ campin’-ground exactly like the last;
While the Big Drum says,
With ‘is “rowdy-dowdy-dow!” —
“Kiko kissywarsti don’t you hamsher argy jow?”*
* Why don’t you get on?
Oh, there’s them Injian temples to admire when you see,
There’s the peacock round the corner an’ the monkey up the tree,
An’ there’s that rummy silver grass a-wavin’ in the wind,
An’ the old Grand Trunk a-trailin’ like a rifle-sling be’ind.
While it’s best foot first, . . .
At half-past five’s Revelly, an’ our tents they down must come,
Like a lot of button mushrooms when you pick ‘em up at ‘ome.
But it’s over in a minute, an’ at six the column starts,
While the women and the kiddies sit an’ shiver in the carts.
An’ it’s best foot first, . . .
Oh, then it’s open order, an’ we lights our pipes an’ sings,
An’ we talks about our rations an’ a lot of other things,
An’ we thinks o’ friends in England, an’ we wonders what they’re at,
An’ ‘ow they would admire for to hear us sling the bat.*
An’ it’s best foot first, . . .
* Language. Thomas’s first and firmest conviction is that he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. As a matter of fact, he depends largely on the sign-language.
It’s none so bad o’ Sunday, when you’re lyin’ at your ease,
To watch the kites a-wheelin’ round them feather-’eaded trees,
For although there ain’t no women, yet there ain’t no barrick-yards,
So the orficers goes shootin’ an’ the men they plays at cards.
Till it’s best foot first, . . .
So ‘ark an’ ‘eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin’ sore,
There’s worser things than marchin’ from Umballa to Cawnpore;
An’ if your ‘eels are blistered an’ they feels to ‘urt like ‘ell,
You drop some tallow in your socks an’ that will make ‘em well.
For it’s best foot first, . . .
We’re marchin’ on relief over Injia’s coral strand,
Eight ‘undred fightin’ Englishmen, the Colonel, and the Band;
Ho! get away you bullock-man, you’ve ‘eard the bugle blowed,
There’s a regiment a-comin’ down the Grand Trunk Road;
With its best foot first
And the road a-sliding past,
An’ every bloomin’ campin’-ground exactly like the last;
While the Big Drum says,
With ‘is “rowdy-dowdy-dow!” —
“Kiko kissywarsti don’t you amsher argy jow?”
The Rowers
1899
(When Germany proposed that England should help her in a naval demonstration to collect debts from Venezuela.)
The banked oars fell an hundred strong,
And backed and threshed and ground,
But bitter was the rowers’ song
As they brought the war-boat round.
They had no heart for the rally and roar
That makes the whale-bath smoke —
When the great blades cleave and hold and leave
As one on the racing stroke.
They sang: — What reckoning do you keep,
And steer by what star,
If we come unscathed from the Southern deep
To be wrecked on a Baltic bar?
“Last night you swore our voyage was done,
But seaward still we go.
And you tell us now of a secret vow
You have made with an open foe!
“That we must lie off a lightless coast
And houl and back and veer
At the will of the breed that have wrought us most
For a year and a year and a year!
“There was never a shame in Christendie
They laid not to our door —
And you say we must take the winter sea
And sail with them once more?
“Look South! The gale is scarce o’erpast
That stripped and laid us down,
When we stood forth but they stood fast
And prayed to see us drown.
“Our dead they mocked are scarcely cold,
Our wounds are bleeding yet —
And you tell us now that our strength is sold
To help them press for a debt!
“‘Neath all the flags of all mankind
That use upon the seas,
Was there no other fleet to find
That you strike bands with these?
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“Of evil times that men can choose
On evil fate to fall,
What brooding Judgment let you loose
To pick the worst of all?
“In sight of peace — from the Narrow Seas
O’er half the world to run —
With a cheated crew, to league anew
With the Goth and the shameless Hun!”
The Runes of Weland’s Sword
1906
“Old Men at Pevensey” — Puck of Pook’s Hill
A smith makes me
To betray my Man
In my first fight.
To gather Gold
At the world’s end
I am sent.
The Gold I gather
Comes into England
Out of deep Water.
Like a shining Fish
Then it descends
Into deep Water.
It is not given
For goods or gear,
But for The Thing.
The Gold I gather
A King covets
For an ill use
The Gold I gather
Is drawn up
Out of deep Water.
Like a shining Fish
Then it descends
Into deep Water.
It is not given
For goods or gear,
But for The Thing.
The Run of the Downs
The Weald is good, the Downs are best — -
I’ll give you the run of ‘em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
Go back as far as sums ‘1l carry.
Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring
They have looked on many a thing,
And what those two have missed between ‘em
I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ‘em. ,
Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
Knew Old England before the Crown.
Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
Knew Old England before the Flood;
And when you end on the Hampshire side —
Butser’s old as Time and Tide.
The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
You be glad you are Sussex born!
The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal’vin
[Allowing for the difference ‘twixt prose and rhymed exaggeration, this ought to reproduce the sense of what Sir A — told the nation sometime ago, when the Government struck from our incomes two per cent.]
Now the New Year, reviving last Year’s Debt,
The Thoughtful Fisher casteth wide his Net;
So I with begging Dish and ready Tongue
Assail all Men for all that I can get.
Imports indeed are gone with all their Dues —
Lo! Salt a Lever that I dare not use,
Nor may I ask the Tillers in Bengal —
Surely my Kith and Kin will not refuse!
Pay — and I promise by the Dust of Spring,
Retrenchment. If my promises can bring
Comfort, Ye have Them now a thousandfold —
By Allah! I will promise Anything!
Indeed, indeed, Retrenchment oft before
I sore — but did I mean it when I swore?
And then, and then, We wandered to the Hills,
And so the Little Less became Much More.
Whether a Boileaugunge or Babylon,
I know not how the wretched Thing is done,
The Items of Receipt grow surely small;
The Items of Expense mount one by one.
I cannot help it. What have I to do
With One and Five, or Four, or Three, or Two?
Let Scribes spit Blood and Sulphur as they please,
Or Statesmen call me foolish — Heed not you.
Behold, I promise — Anything You will.
Behold, I greet you with an empty Till —
Ah! Fellow-Sinners, of your Charity
Seek not the Reason of the Dearth, but fill.
For if I sinned and fell, where lies the Gain
Of Knowledge? Would it ease you of your Pain
To know the tangled Threads of Revenue,
I ravel deeper in a hopeless Skein?
“Who hath not Prudence” — what was it I said,
Of Her who paints her Eyes and tires Her Head,
And gibes and mocks and People in the Street,
And fawns upon them for Her thriftless Bread?
Accursed is She of Eve’s daughters — She
Hath cast off Prudence, and Her End shall be
Destruction . . . Brethren, of your Bounty
Some portion of your daily Bread to Me.
Russia To The Pacifists
1918
God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
But — leave your sports a little while — the dead are borne
this way!
Armies dead and Cities dead, past all count or care.
God rest you, merry gentlemen, what portent see you there?
Singing: — Break ground for a wearied host
That have no ground to keep.
Give them the rest that they covet most . . .
And who shall next to sleep, good sirs,
In such a trench to sleep?
God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, but give us leave to pass.
We go to dig a nation’s grave as great as England was.
For this Kingdom and this Glory and this Power and this Pride
Three hundred years it flourished — in three hundred days it
died.
Singing: — Pour oil for a frozen throng,
That lie about the ways.
Give them the warmth they have lacked so
long . . .
And what shall be next to blaze, good sirs,
On such a pyre to blaze?
God rest you, thoughtful gentlemen, and send your sleep is light!
Remains of this dominion no shadow, sound, or sight,
Except the sound of weeping and the sight of burning fire,
And the shadow of a people that is trampled into mire.
Singing: — Break bread for a starving folk
That perish in the field.
Give them their food as they take the yoke . . .
And who shall be next to yield, good sirs,
For such a bribe to yield?
God rest you merry gentlemen, and keep you in your mirth!
Was ever Kingdom turned so soon to ashes, blood and earth?
‘Twixt the summer and the snow-seeding-time and frost —
Arms and victual, hope and counsel, name and country lost!
Singing: — Let down by the foot and the head —
Shovel and smooth it all !
So do we bury a Nation dead . . .
And who shall be next to fall, good sirs,
With your good help to fall?
The Sacrifice of Er-Heb
Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
Comes westward o’er the peaks to India.
The story of Bisesa, Armod’s child, —
A maiden plighted to the Chief in War,
The Man of Sixty Spears, who held the Pass
That leads to Thibet, but to-day is gone
To seek his comfort of the God called Budh
The Silent — showing how the Sickness ceased
Because of her who died to save the tribe.
Taman is One and greater than us all,
Taman is One and greater than all Gods:
Taman is Two in One and rides the sky,
Curved like a stallion’s croup, from dusk to dawn,
And drums upon it with his heels, whereby
Is bred the neighing thunder in the hills.
This is Taman, the God of all E
r-Heb,
Who was before all Gods, and made all Gods,
And presently will break the Gods he made,
And step upon the Earth to govern men
Who give him milk-dry ewes and cheat his Priests,
Or leave his shrine unlighted — as Er-Heb
Left it unlighted and forgot Taman,
When all the Valley followed after Kysh
And Yabosh, little Gods but very wise,
And from the sky Taman beheld their sin.
He sent the Sickness out upon the hills,
The Red Horse Sickness with the iron hooves,
To turn the Valley to Taman again.
And the Red Horse snuffed thrice into the wind,
The naked wind that had no fear of him;
And the Red Horse stamped thrice upon the snow,
The naked snow that had no fear of him;
And the Red Horse went out across the rocks,
The ringing rocks that had no fear of him;
And downward, where the lean birch meets the snow,
And downward, where the gray pine meets the birch,
And downward, where the dwarf oak meets the pine,
Till at his feet our cup-like pastures lay.
That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,
Dropped as a cloth upon a dead man’s face,
And weltered in the Valley, bluish-white
Like water very silent — spread abroad,
Like water very silent, from the Shrine
Unlighted of Taman to where the stream
Is dammed to fill our cattle-troughs — sent up
White waves that rocked and heaved and then were still,
Till all the Valley glittered like a marsh,
Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist