Because they told him to.
He left his wife at Simla
On three-fourths his monthly screw.
Jack Barrett died at Quetta
Ere the next month’s pay he drew.
Jack Barrett went to Quetta.
He didn’t understand
The reason of his transfer
From the pleasant mountain-land.
The season was September,
And it killed him out of hand.
Jack Barrett went to Quetta
And there gave up the ghost,
Attempting two men’s duty
In that very healthy post;
And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him
Five lively months at most.
Jack Barrett’s bones at Quetta
Enjoy profound repose;
But I shouldn’t be astonished
If now his spirit knows
The reason of his transfer
From the Himalayan snows.
And, when the Last Great Bugle Call
Adown the Hurnai throbs,
And the last grim joke is entered
In the big black Book of Jobs.
And Quetta graveyards give again
Their victims to the air,
I shouldn’t like to be the man
Who sent Jack Barrett there.
The Stranger
Canadian
The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk —
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.
The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.
The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control —
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.
The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.
This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf —
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.
Study of an Elevation, In Indian Ink
This ditty is a string of lies.
But-how the deuce did Gubbins rise?
Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.
Stands at the top of the tree;
And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led
To the hoisting of Potiphar G.
Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is seven years junior to Me;
Each bridge that he makes either buckles or breaks,
And his work is as rough as he.
Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is coarse as a chimpanzee;
And I can’t understand why you gave him your hand,
Lovely Mehitabel Lee.
Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is dear to the Powers that Be;
For They bow and They smile in an affable style,
Which is seldom accorded to Me.
Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is certain as certain can be
Of a highly paid post which is claimed by a host
Of seniors — including Me.
Careless and lazy is he,
Greatly inferior to Me.
That is the spell that you manage so well,
Commonplace Potiphar G.?
Lovely Mehitabel Lee,
Let me inquire of thee,
Should I have riz to where Potiphar is,
Hadst thou been mated to Me?
Such as in Ships
SUCH as in Ships and brittle Barks
Into the Seas descend
Shall learn how wholly on those Arks
Our Victuals do depend.
For, when a Man would bite or sup,
Or buy him Goods or Gear,
He needs must call the Oceans up,
And move an Hemisphere.
Consider, now, that Indian Weed
Which groweth o’er the Main,
With Teas and Cottons for our Need,
And Sugar of the Cane-
Their Comings We no more regard
Than daily Corn or Oil:
Yet, when Men waft Them Englandward,
How infinite the Toil!
Nation and People harvesteth
The tropique Lands among,
And Engines of tumultuous Breath
Do draw the Yield along-
Yea, even as by Hecatombs
Which, presently struck down
Into our Navies’ labouring Wombs
Make Pennyworths in Town.
Supplication of the Black Aberdeen
1928
I PRAY! My little body and whole span
Of years is Thine, my Owner and my Man.
For Thou hast made me-unto Thee I owe
This dim, distressed half-soul that hurts me so,
Compact of every crime, but, none the less,
Broken by knowledge of its naughtiness.
Put me not from Thy Life-’tis all I know.
If Thou forsake me, whither shall I go?
Thine is the Voice with which my Day begins:
Thy Foot my refuge, even in my sins.
Thine Honour hurls me forth to testify
Against the Unclean and Wicked passing by.
(But when Thou callest they are of Thy Friends,
Who readier than I to make amends?)
I was Thy Deputy with high and low-
If Thou dismiss me, whither shall I go?
I have been driven forth on gross offence
That took no reckoning of my penitence.
And, in my desolation-faithless me!-
Have crept for comfort to a woman’s knee!
Now I return, self-drawn, to meet the just
Reward of Riot, Theft and Breach of Trust.
Put me not from Thy Life-though this is so.
If Thou forsake me, whither shall I go?
Into The Presence, flattening while I crawl-
>From head to tail, I do confess it all.
Mine was the fault-deal me the stripes-but spare
The Pointed Finger which I cannot bear!
The Dreadful Tone in which my Name is named,
That sends me ‘neath the sofa-frill ashamed!
(Yet, to be near Thee, I would face that woe.)
If Thou reject me, whither shall I go?
Can a gift turn Thee? I will bring mine all-
My Secret Bone, my Throwing-Stick, my Ball.
Or wouldst Thou sport? Then watch me hunt awhile,
Chasing, not after conies, but Thy Smile,
Content, as breathless on the turf I sit,
Thou shouldst deride my little legs and wit-
Ah! Keep me in Thy Life for a fool’s show!
If Thou deny me, whither shall I go? ...
Is the Dark gone? The Light of Eyes restored?
The Countenance turned meward, O my Lord?
The Paw accepted, and-for all to see-
The Abject Sinner throned upon the Knee?
The Ears bewrung, and Muzzle scratched because
He is forgiven, and All is as It was? . . .
Now am I in Thy Life, and since ‘tis so-
That Cat awaits the Judgment. May I go?
The Supports
“On the Gate”
Song of the Waiting Seraphs
&nbs
p; (From “Debits and Credits”)
Full Chorus.
To Him Who bade the Heavens abide, yet cease not from their motion,
To Him Who tames the moonstruck tide a day round the Ocean –
Let His Names be magnified in all poor folks’ devotion!
Powers and Gifts.
Not for Prophecies or Powers, Visions, Gifts, or Graces,
But the unregardful hours that grind us in our places
With the burden on our backs, the weather in our faces.
Toils.
Not for any Miracle of easy Loaves and Fishes,
But for doing, ‘gainst our will, work against our wishes –
Such as finding food to fill daily-emptied dishes.
Glories.
Not for Voices, Harps or Wings or rapt illumination,
But the grosser Self that springs of use and occupation,
Unto which the Spirit clings as her last salvation.
Powers, Glories, Toils, and Gifts.
(He Who launched our Ship of Fools many anchors gave us,
Lest one gale should start them all – one collision stave us.
Praise Him for the petty creeds
That prescribe in paltry needs
Solemn rites to trivial deeds and, by small things, save us!)
Services and Loves.
Heart may fail, and Strength outwear, and Purpose turn to Loathing,
But the everyday affair of business, meals, and closing,
Builds the bulkhead ‘twixt Despair and the Edge of Nothing.
Patiences.
(Praise Him, then, Who orders it that, though Earth be flaring,
And the crazy skies are lit
By the searchlights of the Pit,
Man should not depart a whit from his wonted bearing.)
Hopes.
He Who bids the wild-swans’ hosts still maintain their flight on
Air-roads over islands lost –
Ages since ‘neath Ocean lost –
Beaches of some sunken coast their fathers would alight on –
Faiths.
He shall guide us through this dark, not by new-blown glories,
But by every ancient mark our fathers used before us,
Till our children ground their ark where the proper shore is.
Services, Patiences, Faiths, Hopes, and Loves.
He Who used the clay that clings on our boots to make us,
Shall not suffer earthly things to remove or shake us:
But, when Man denies His Lord,
Habit without Fleet or Sword
(Custom without threat or word)
Sees the ancient fanes restored – the timeless rites o’ertake us!
Full Chorus.
For He Who makes the Mountains smoke and rives the Hill asunder,
And, to-morrow, leads the grass –
Mere unconquerable grass –
Were the fuming crater was, to heal and bide it under,
He shall not – He shall not –
Shall not lay on us the yoke of too long Fear and Wonder!
The Survival
Horace BK. V. Ode 22
“The Janeites”
Securely, after days
Unnumbered, I behold
Kings mourn that promised praise
Their cheating bards foretold.
Of earth constricting Wars,
Of Princes passed in chains,
Of deeds out-shining stars,
No word or voice remains.
Yet furthest times receive,
And to fresh praise restore,
Mere breath of flutes at eve,
Mere seaweed on the shore.
A smoke of sacrifice;
A chosen myrtle-wreath;
An harlot’s altered eyes;
A rage ‘gainst love or death;
Glazed snow beneath the moon —
The surge of storm-bowed trees —
The Caesars perished soon,
And Rome Herself: But these
Endure while Empires fall
And Gods for Gods make room....
Which greater God than all
Imposed the amazing doom?
Sussex
1902
God gave all men all earth to love,
But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation’s birth,
So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
And see that it is good.
So one shall Baltic pines content,
As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove’s droned lament
Before Levuka’s Trade.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground —
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
No tender-hearted garden crowns,
No bosonied woods adorn
Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,
But gnarled and writhen thorn —
Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,
And, through the gaps revealed,
Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,
Blue goodness of the Weald.
Clean of officious fence or hedge,
Half-wild and wholly tame,
The wise turf cloaks the white cliff-edge
As when the Romans came.
What sign of those that fought and died
At shift of sword and sword?
The barrow and the camp abide,
The sunlight and the sward.
Here leaps ashore the full Sou’west
All heavy-winged with brine,
Here lies above the folded crest
The Channel’s leaden line,
And here the sea-fogs lap and cling,
And here, each warning each,
The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring
Along the hidden beach.
We have no waters to delight
Our broad and brookless vales —
Only the dewpond on the height
Unfed, that never fails —
Whereby no tattered herbage tells
Which way the season flies —
Only our close-bit thyme that smells
Like dawn in Paradise.
Here through the strong and shadeless days
The tinkling silence thrills;
Or little, lost, Down churches praise
The Lord who made the hills:
But here the Old Gods guard their round,
And, in her secret heart,
The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found
Dreams, as she dwells, apart.
Though all the rest were all my share,
With equal soul I’d see
Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair,
Yet none more fair than she.
Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,
And I will choose instead
Such lands as lie ‘twixt Rake and Rye,
Black Down and Beachy Head.
I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.
I will go north about the shaws
And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s
Begilded dolphin veers,
And red beside wide-banked Ouse
Lie down our Sussex steers.
So to the land our hearts we give
Til the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
; Us and our fields alike —
That deeper than our speech and thought,
Beyond our reason’s sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love,
But, since man’s heart is smal,
Ordains for each one spot shal prove
Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground —
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
A Tale of Two Cities
Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
Hides and ghi;
Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints
In his prints;
Stands a City — Charnock chose it — packed away
Near a Bay —
By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer
Made impure,
By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp
Moist and damp;
And the City and the Viceroy, as we see,
Don’t agree.
Once, two hundered years ago, the trader came
Meek and tame.
Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed,
Till mere trade
Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth
South and North
Till the country from Peshawur to Ceylon
Was his own.
Thus the midday halt of Charnock — more’s the pity!
Grew a City.
As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,
So it spread —
Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built
On the silt —
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 811