And we all praise famous men —
Ancients of the College;
For they taught us common sense —
Tried to teach us common sense —
Truth and God’s Own Common Sense,
Which is more than knowledge!
Each degree of Latitude
Strung about Creation
Seeth one or more of us
(Of one muster each of us),
Diligent in that he does,
Keen in his vocation.
This we learned from famous men,
Knowing not its uses,
When they showed, in daily work —
Man must finish off his work —
Right or wrong, his daily work —
And without excuses.
Servant of the Staff and chain,
Mine and fuse and grapnel —
Some, before the face of Kings,
Stand before the face of Kings;
Bearing gifts to divers Kings —
Gifts of case and shrapnel.
This we learned from famous men
Teaching in our borders,
Who declared it was best,
Safest, easiest, and best —
Expeditious, wise, and best —
To obey your orders.
Some beneath the further stars
Bear the greater burden:
Set to serve the lands they rule,
(Save he serve no man may rule ),
Serve and love the lands they rule;
Seeking praise nor guerdon.
This we learned from famous men,
Knowing not we learned it.
Only, as the years went by —
Lonely, as the years went by —
Far from help as years went by,
Plainer we discerned it.
Wherefore praise we famous men
From whose bays we borrow —
They that put aside To-day —
All the joys of their To-day —
And with toil of their To-day
Bought for us To-morrow!
Bless and praise we famous men —
Men of little showing —
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,
Broad and deep continueth,
Great beyond their knowing!
Screw-Guns
Smokin’ my pipe on the mountings, sniffin’ the mornin’ cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o’ my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be’ind me, an’ never a beggar forgets
It’s only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets — ‘Tss! ‘Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns — the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do — hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender — it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!
They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain’t:
We’d climb up the side of a sign-board an’ trust to the stick o’ the paint:
We’ve chivied the Naga an’ Looshai, we’ve give the Afreedeeman fits,
For we fancies ourselves at two thousand, we guns that are built in two bits — ‘Tss! ‘Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
If a man doesn’t work, why, we drills ‘im an’ teaches ‘im ‘ow to behave;
If a beggar can’t march, why, we kills ‘im an’ rattles ‘im into ‘is grave.
You’ve got to stand up to our business an’ spring without snatchin’ or fuss.
D’you say that you sweat with the field-guns? By God, you must lather with us — ‘Tss! ‘Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
The eagles is screamin’ around us, the river’s a-moanin’ below,
We’re clear o’ the pine an’ the oak-scrub, we’re out on the rocks an’ the snow,
An’ the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains
The rattle an’ stamp o’ the lead-mules — the jinglety-jink o’ the chains — ‘Tss! ‘Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
There’s a wheel on the Horns o’ the Mornin’, an’ a wheel on the edge o’ the Pit,
An’ a drop into nothin’ beneath you as straight as a beggar can spit:
With the sweat runnin’ out o’ your shirt-sleeves, an’ the sun off the snow in your face,
An’ ‘arf o’ the men on the drag-ropes to hold the old gun in ‘er place — ‘Tss! ‘Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
Smokin’ my pipe on the mountings, sniffin’ the mornin’ cool,
I climbs in my old brown gaiters along o’ my old brown mule.
The monkey can say what our road was — the wild-goat ‘e knows where we passed.
Stand easy, you long-eared old darlin’s! Out drag-ropes! With shrapnel! Hold fast — ‘Tss! ‘Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns — the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do — hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender — it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they’ll be only your graves, but you can’t get away from the guns!
The Sea And the Hills
1902
Who hath desired the Sea? — the sight of salt wind-hounded —
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing —
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing —
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same ‘neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills!
Who hath desired the Sea? — the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder —
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail’s low-volleying thunder —
His Sea in no wonder the same his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies?
The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?
The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that de clare it —
White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it —
His Sea as his fathers have dared — his Sea as his children shall dare it:
His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise — so and no otherwisc — hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees — inland where the slayer may slay him —
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him
His Sea from the first that betrayed — at the last that shall never betray him:
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.
Seal Lullaby
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Whe
re billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.
The Sea-Wife
There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o’ rovin’ men
And casts them over sea.
And some are drowned in deep water,
And some in sight o’ shore,
And word goes back to the weary wife
And ever she sends more.
For since that wife had gate or gear,
Or hearth or garth or bield,
She willed her sons to the white harvest,
And that is a bitter yield.
She wills her sons to the wet ploughing,
To ride the horse of tree,
And syne her sons come back again
Far-spent from out the sea.
The good wife’s sons come home again
With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that ha’ dealt with men
In the new and naked lands;
But the faith of men that ha’ brothered men
By more than easy breath,
And the eyes o’ men that ha’ read wi’ men
In the open books of death.
Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
But poor in the goods o’ men;
So what they ha’ got by the skin o’ their teeth
They sell for their teeth again.
For whether they lose to the naked life
Or win to their hearts’ desire,
They tell it all to the weary wife
That nods beside the fire.
Her hearth is wide to every wind
That makes the white ash spin;
And tide and tide and ‘tween the tides
Her sons go out and in;
(Out with great mirth that do desire
Hazard of trackless ways,
In with content to wait their watch
And warm before the blaze);
And some return by failing light,
And some in waking dream,
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roof-beam.
Home, they come home from all the ports,
The living and the dead;
The good wife’s sons come home again
For her blessing on their head!
The Second Voyage
1903
We’ve sent our little Cupids all ashore —
They were frightened, they were tired, they were cold:
Our sails of silk and purple go to store,
And we’ve cut away our mast of beaten gold
(Foul weather!)
Oh ‘tis hemp and singing pine for to stand against the brine,
But Love he is our master as of old!
The sea has shorn our galleries away,
The salt has soiled our gilding past remede;
Our paint is flaked and blistered by the spray,
Our sides are half a fathom furred in weed
(Foul weather!)
And the Doves of Venus fled and the petrels came instead,
But Love he was our master at our need!
‘Was Youth would keep no vigil at the bow,
‘Was Pleasure at the helm too drunk to steer —
We’ve shipped three able quartermasters now.
Men call them Custom, Reverence, and Fear
(Foul weather!)
They are old and scarred and plain, but we’ll run no risk again
From any Port o’ Paphos mutineer!
We seek no more the tempest for delight,
We skirt no more the indraught and the shoal —
We ask no more of any day or night
Than to come with least adventure to our goal
(Foul weather!)
What we find we needs must brook, but we do not go to look,
Nor tempt the Lord our God that saved us whole.
Yet, caring so, not overmuch we care
To brace and trim for every foolish blast,
If the squall be pleased to seep us unaware,
He may bellow off to leeward like the last
(Foul weather!)
We will blame it on the deep (for the watch must have their sleep),
And Love can come and wake us when ‘tis past.
Oh launch them down with music from the beach,
Oh warp them out with garlands from the quays —
Most resolute — a damsel unto each —
New prows that seek the old Hesperides!
(Foul weather!)
Though we know their voyage is vain, yet we see our path again
In the saffroned bridesails scenting all the seas!
(Foul weather!)
The Secret of the Machines
Modern Machinery
We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit —
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!
We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!
Would you call a friend from half across the world?
If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,
You shall see and hear your cracking question hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you wait.
Has he answered? Does he need you at his side-
You can start this very evening if you choose
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
O seventy thousand horses and some screws!
The boat-express is waiting your command!
You will find the Mauritania at the quay,
Till her captain turns the lever ‘neath his hand,
And the monstrouos nine-decked city goes to sea.
Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head
And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?
Do you want to turn a river in its bed,
Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,
To work the mills and tramways in your town,
And irrigate your orchards as it flows?
It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!
Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake,
As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.
But remember, please, the Law by which we live,
We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.
If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings-
Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods! —
Our touch can alter all created things,
We are everything on earth — except The Gods!
Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
Because, for all our power and weight and size,
We are nothing more than children of your brain!
Sepulchral
From the Greek Anthologies
— The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)
Swifter than aught ‘neath the sun the car of Simonides moved
him.
Two things he could not out-run — Death and a Woman who
loved him.
The Sergeant’s Weddin’
‘E was warned agin’ ‘er —
That’s what made ‘im look;
She was warned agin’ ‘im —
That is why she took.
‘Wouldn’t ‘ear no reason,
‘Went an’ done it blind;
We know all about ‘em,
They’ve got all to find!
Cheer for the Sergeant’s weddin’ —
Give ‘em one cheer more!
Grey gun-’orses in the lando,
An’ a rogue is married to, etc.
What’s the use o’ tellin’
‘Arf the lot she’s been?
‘E’s a bloomin’ robber,
An’ ‘e keeps canteen.
‘Ow did ‘e get ‘is buggy?
Gawd, you needn’t ask!
‘Made ‘is forty gallon
Out of every cask!
Watch ‘im, with ‘is ‘air cut,
Count us filin’ by —
Won’t the Colonel praise ‘is
Pop — u — lar — i — ty!
We ‘ave scores to settle —
Scores for more than beer;
She’s the girl to pay ‘em —
That is why we’re ‘ere!
See the chaplain thinkin’?
See the women smile?
Twig the married winkin’
As they take the aisle?
Keep your side-arms quiet,
Dressin’ by the Band.
Ho! You ‘oly beggars,
Cough be’ind your ‘and!
Now it’s done an’ over,
‘Ear the organ squeak,
“‘Voice that breathed o’er Eden” —
Ain’t she got the cheek!
White an’ laylock ribbons,
Think yourself so fine!
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 804