Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

by Rudyard Kipling

  I, the everlasting Wonder-song of Youth!

  With my “Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!”

  What d’ye lack, my noble masters! What d’ye lack?] - @ @ @@ @- @ @

  So I draw the world together link by link:

  Yea, from Delos up to Limerick and back!

  A Song of Bananas

  (From the “Brazilian Verse”)

  1927

  HAVE you no Bananas, simple townsmen all?

  “Nay, but we have them certainly.

  “We buy them off the barrows, with the vegetable-marrows

  “And the cabbage of our own country,

  “(From the costers of our own country.)”

  Those are not Bananas, simple townsmen all.

  (Plantains from Canaryward maybe!)

  For the true are red and gold, and they fill no steamer’s hold,

  But flourish in a rare country,

  (That men go far to see.)

  Their stiff fronds point the nooning down, simple townsmen all,

  Or rear against the breezes off the sea;

  Or duck and loom again, through the curtains of the rain

  That the loaded hills let free-

  (Bellying ‘twixt the uplands and the sea.)

  Little birds inhabit there, simple townsmen all-

  Jewelled things no bigger than a bee;

  And the opal butterflies plane and settle, flare and rise,

  Through the low-arched greenery,

  (That is malachite and jade of the sea.)

  The red earth works and whispers there, simple townsmen all,

  Day and night in rank fecundity,

  That the Blossom and the Snake lie open and awake,

  As it was by Eden Tree,

  (When the First Moon silvered through the Tree)...

  But you must go to business, simple townsmen all,

  By ‘bus and train and tram and tube must flee!

  For your Pharpars and Abanas do not include Bananas

  (And Jordan is a distant stream to drink of, simple townsmen),

  Which leaves the more for me!

  The Song of the Cities

  BOMBAY

  Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen

  Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands —

  A thousand mills roar through me where I glean

  All races from all lands.

  CALCUTTA

  Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built,

  Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold.

  Hail, England! I am Asia — Power on silt,

  Death in my hands, but Gold!

  MADRAS

  Clive kissed me on the mouth and eyes and brow,

  Wonderful kisses, so that I became

  Crowned above Queens — a withered beldame now,

  Brooding on ancient fame.

  RANGOON

  Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade?

  Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone,

  And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid,

  Laugh ‘neath my Shwe Dagon.

  SINGAPORE

  Hail, Mother! East and West must seek my aid

  Ere the spent gear may dare the ports afar.

  The second doorway of the wide world’s trade

  Is mine to loose or bar.

  HONG-KONG

  Hail, Mother! Hold me fast; my Praya sleeps

  Under innumerable keels to-day.

  Yet guard (and landward), or to-morrow sweeps

  Thy war-ships down the bay!

  HALIFAX

  Into the mist my guardian prows put forth,

  Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie,

  The Warden of the Honour of the North,

  Sleepless and veiled am I!

  QUEBEC AND MONTREAL

  Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose,

  Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate.

  Now wake we and remember mighty blows,

  And, fearing no man, wait!

  VICTORIA

  From East to West the circling word has passed,

  Till West is East beside our land-locked blue;

  From East to West the tested chain holds fast,

  The well-forged link rings true!

  CAPE TOWN

  Hail! Snatched and bartered oft from hand to hand,

  I dream my dream, by rock and heath and pine,

  Of Empire to the northward. Ay, one land

  From Lion’s Head to Line!

  MELBOURNE

  Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place,

  Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth,

  Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-race

  That whips our harbour-mouth!

  SYDNEY

  Greeting! My birth-stain have I turned to good;

  Forcing strong wills perverse to steadfastness:

  The first flush of the tropics in my blood,

  And at my feet Success!

  BRISBANE

  The northern stirp beneath the southern skies —

  I build a Nation for an Empire’s need,

  Suffer a little, and my land shall rise,

  Queen over lands indeed!

  HOBART

  Man’s love first found me; man’s hate made me Hell;

  For my babes’ sake I cleansed those infamies.

  Earnest for leave to live and labour well,

  God flung me peace and ease.

  AUCKLAND

  Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart —

  On us, on us the unswerving season smiles,

  Who wonder ‘mid our fern why men depart

  To seek the Happy Isles!

  The Song of the Dead

  Hear now the Song of the Dead — in the North by the torn berg-edges —

  They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.

  Song of the Dead in the South — in the sun by their skeleton horses,

  Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses.

  Song of the Dead in the East — in the heat-rotted jungle-hollows,

  Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof — in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.

  Song of the Dead in the West in the Barrens, the pass that betrayed them,

  Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-rnound they made them;

  Hear now the Song of the Dead!

  I

  We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;

  We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.

  Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,

  Till the Soul that is not man’s soul was lent us to lead.

  As the deer breaks — as the steer breaks — from the herd where they graze,

  In the faith of little children we went on our ways.

  Then the wood failed — then the food failed — then the last water dried.

  In the faith of little children we lay down and died.

  On the sand-drift — on the veldt-side — in the fern-scrub we lay,

  That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.

  Follow after-follow after! We have watered the root,

  And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!

  Follow after — we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,

  For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.

  Follow after-follow after — for the harvest is sown:

  By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!

  When Drake went down to the Horn

  And England was crowned thereby,

  ‘Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed

  Our Lodge — our Lodge was born

  (And England was crowned thereby!)

  Which never shall close again

  By day nor yet by night,

  While man shall take his ife to stake

  A
t risk of shoal or main

  (By day nor yet by night)

  But standeth even so

  As now we witness here,

  While men depart, of joyful heart,

  Adventure for to know

  (As now bear witness here!)

  II

  We have fed our sea for a thousand years

  And she calls us, still unfed,

  Tbough there’s never a wave of all her waves

  But marks our English dead:

  We have strawed our best to the weed’s unrest,

  To the shark and the sheering gull.

  If blood be the price of admiralty,

  Lord God, we ha’ paid in full!

  There’s never a flood goes shoreward now

  But lifts a keel we manned;

  There’s never an ebb goes seaward now

  But drops our dead on the sand —

  But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,

  From the Ducies to the Swin.

  If blood be the price of admiralty,

  If blood be the price of admiralty,

  Lord God, we ha’ paid it in!

  We must feed our sea for a thousand years,

  For that is our doom and pride,

  As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,

  Or tbe wreck that struck last tide —

  Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef

  Where the ghastly blue-lights flare

  If blood be tbe price of admiralty,

  If blood be tbe price of admiralty,

  If blood be the price of admiralty,

  Lord God, we ha’ bought it fair!

  Song of Diego Valdez

  1902

  The God of Fair Beginnings

  Hath prospered here my hand —

  The cargoes of my lading,

  And the keels of my command.

  For out of many ventures

  That sailed with hope as high,

  My own have made the better trade,

  And Admiral am I.

  To me my King’s much honour,

  To me my people’s love —

  To me the pride of Princes

  And power all pride above;

  To me the shouting cities,

  To me the mob’s refrain: —

  “Who knows not noble Valdez

  “Hath never heard of Spain.”

  But I remember comrades —

  Old playmates on new seas —

  Whenas we traded orpiment

  Among the savages —

  A thousand leagues to south’ard

  And thirty years removed —

  They knew nor noble Valdez,

  But me they knew and loved.

  Then they that found good liquor,

  They drank it not alone,

  And they that found fair plunder,

  They told us every one,

  About our chosen islands

  Or secret shoals between,

  When, weary from far voyage,

  We gathered to careen.

  There burned our breaming-fagots

  All pale along the shore:

  There rose our worn pavilions —

  A sail above an oar:

  As flashed each yeaming anchor

  Through mellow seas afire,

  So swift our careless captains

  Rowed each to his desire.

  Where lay our loosened harness?

  Where turned our naked feet?

  Whose tavern ‘mid the palm-trees?

  What quenchings of what heat?

  Oh, fountain in the desert!

  Oh, cistern in the waste!

  Oh, bread we ate in secret!

  Oh, cup we spilled in haste!

  The youth new-taught of longing,

  The widow curbed and wan,

  The goodwife proud at season,

  And the maid aware of man —

  All souls unslaked, consuming,

  Defrauded in delays,

  Desire not more their quittance

  Than I those forfeit days!

  I dreamed to wait my pleasure

  Unchanged my spring would bide:

  Wherefore, to wait my pleasure,

  I put my spring aside

  Till, first in face of Fortune,

  And last in mazed disdain,

  I made Diego Valdez

  High Admiral of Spain.

  Then walked no wind ‘neath Heaven

  Nor surge that did not aid —

  I dared extreme occasion,

  Nor ever one betrayed.

  They wrought a deeper treason —

  (Led seas that served my needs!)

  They sold Diego Valdez

  To bondage of great deeds.

  The tempest flung me seaward,

  And pinned and bade me hold

  The course I might not alter —

  And men esteemed me bold!

  The calms embayed my quarry,

  The fog-wreath sealed his eyes;

  The dawn-wind brought my topsails —

  And men esteemed me wise!

  Yet, ‘spite my tyrant triumphs,

  Bewildered, dispossessed —

  My dream held I beore me

  My vision of my rest;

  But, crowned by Fleet and People,

  And bound by King and Pope —

  Stands here Diego Valdez

  To rob me of my hope.

  No prayer of mine shall move him.

  No word of his set free

  The Lord of Sixty Pennants

  And the Steward of the Sea.

  His will can loose ten thousand

  To seek their loves again —

  But not Diego Valdez,

  High Admiral of Spain.

  There walks no wind ‘neath Heaven

  Nor wave that shall restore

  The old careening riot

  And the clamorous, crowded shore —

  The fountain in the desert,

  The cistern in the waste,

  The bread we ate in secret,

  The cup we spilled in haste.

  Now call I to my Captains —

  For council fly the sign —

  Now leap their zealous galleys,

  Twelve-oared, across the brine.

  To me the straiter prison,

  To me the heavier chain —

  To me Diego Valdez,

  High Admiral of Spain!

  Song of the Dynamo

  How do I know what Order brings

  Me into being?

  I only know, if you do certain things,

  I must become your Hearing and your Seeing;

  Also your Strength, to make great wheels go round,

  And save your sons from toil, while I am bound!

  What do I care how you dispose

  The Powers that move me?

  I only know that I am one with those

  True Powers which rend the firmament above me,

  And, harrying earth, would save me at the last-

  But that your coward foresight holds me fast!

  A Song of the English

  Fair is our lot — O goodly is our heritage!

  (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)

  For the Lord our God Most High

  He hath made the deep as dry,

  He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!

  Yea, though we sinned — and our rulers went from righteousness —

  Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garments’ hem.

  Oh be ye not dismayed,

  Though we stumbled and we strayed,

  We were led by evil counsellors — the Lord shall deal with them!

  Hold ye the Faith — the Faith our Fathers seal]ed us;

  Whoring not with visions — overwise and overstale.

  Except ye pay the Lord

  Single heart and single sword,

  Of your children in their bondage shall He ask them treble-tale!

  K
eep ye the Law — be swift in all obedience —

  Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.

  Make ye sure to each his own

  That he reap where he hath sown;

  By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord!

  . . . . .

  Hear now a song — a song of broken interludes —

  A song of little cunning; of a singer nothing worth.

  Through the naked words and mean

  May ye see the truth between

  As the singer knew and touched it in the ends of all the Earth!

  Song of the Fifth River

  “The Treasure and the Low” — Puck of Pook’s Hills.

  Where first by Eden Tree

  The Four Great Rivers ran,

  To each was appointed a Man

  Her Prince and Ruler to be.

  But after this was ordained

  (The ancient legends’ tell),

  There came dark Israel,

  For whom no River remained.

  Then He Whom the Rivers obey

  Said to him: “Fling on the ground

  A handful of yellow clay,

  And a Fifth Great River shall run,

  Mightier than these Four,

  In secret the Earth around;

  And Her secret evermore,

  Shall be shown to thee and thy Race.”

  So it was said and done.

  And, deep in the veins of Earth,

  And, fed by a thousand springs

  That comfort the market-place,

  Or sap the power of King,