Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems

by Rudyard Kipling

If mortal man could change me through and through

  From all I was – what may The God not do?

  HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE

  This man in his own country prayed we know not to what Powers.

  We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

  THE COWARD

  I could not look on Death, which being known,

  Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

  SHOCK

  My name, my speech, my self I had forgot.

  My wife and children came – I knew them not.

  I died. My Mother followed. At her call

  And on her bosom I remembered all.

  A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO

  Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here

  Get out – get out! He knows not shame nor fear.

  PELICANS IN THE WILDERNESS

  A Grave near Halfa

  The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn

  Where I am laid for whom my children grieve …

  O wings that beat at dawning, ye return

  Out of the desert to your young at eve!

  ‘CANADIANS’

  We, giving all, gained all.

  Neither lament us nor praise;

  Only, in all things recall,

  It is fear, not death, that slays.

  INSCRIPTION ON MEMORIAL IN SAULT STE. MARIE, ONTARIO

  From little towns in a far land, we came,

  To save our honour, and a world aflame;

  By little towns in a far land, we sleep

  And trust those things we won, to you to keep.

  THE FAVOUR

  Death favoured me from the first, well knowing I could not endure

  To wait on him day by day. He quitted my betters and came

  Whistling over the fields, and, when he had made all sure,

  ‘Thy line is at end,’ he said, ‘but at least I have saved its name.’

  THE BEGINNER

  On the first hour of my first day

  In the front trench I fell.

  (Children in boxes at a play

  Stand up to watch it well.)

  R.A.F. (AGE EIGHTEEN)

  Laughing through clouds, his milk-teeth still unshed,

  Cities and men he smote from overhead.

  His deaths delivered, he returned to play

  Childlike, with childish things now put away.

  THE REFINED MAN

  I was of delicate mind. I went aside for my needs,

  Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar and killed …

  How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds.

  I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.

  NATIVE WATER-CARRIER (M.E.F.)

  Prometheus brought down fire to men.

  This brought up water.

  The Gods are jealous – now, as then,

  Giving no quarter.

  BOMBED IN LONDON

  On land and sea I strove with anxious care

  To escape conscription. It was in the air!

  THE SLEEPY SENTINEL

  Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep.

  I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep.

  Let no man reproach me again, whatever watch is unkept –

  I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.

  BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION

  If any mourn us in the workshop, say,

  We died because the shift kept holiday.

  COMMON FORM

  If any question why we died.

  Tell them, because our fathers lied.

  A DEAD STATESMAN

  I could not dig: I dared not rob:

  Therefore I lied to please the mob.

  Now all my lies are proved untrue

  And I must face the men I slew.

  What tale shall serve me here among

  Mine angry and defrauded young?

  THE REBEL

  If I had clamoured at Thy Gate

  For the gift of Life on Earth,

  And, thrusting through the souls that wait

  Flung headlong into birth –

  Even then, even then, for gin and snare

  About my pathway spread,

  Lord, I had mocked Thy thoughtful care

  Before I joined the Dead!

  But now?… I was beneath Thy Hand

  Ere yet the Planets came.

  And now – though Planets pass, I stand

  The witness to Thy shame!

  THE OBEDIENT

  Daily, though no ears attended,

  Did my prayers arise.

  Daily, though no fire descended,

  Did I sacrifice.

  Though my darkness did not lift,

  Though I faced no lighter odds,

  Though the Gods bestowed no gift,

  None the less,

  None the less, I served the Gods!

  A DRIFTER OFF TARENTUM

  He from the wind-bitten North with ship and companions descended,

  Searching for eggs of death spawned by invisible hulls.

  Many he found and drew forth. Of a sudden the fishery ended

  In flame and a clamorous breath known to the eye-pecking gulls.

  DESTROYERS IN COLLISION

  For Fog and Fate no charm is found

  To lighten or amend.

  I, hurrying to my bride, was drowned –

  Cut down by my best friend.

  CONVOY ESCORT

  I was a shepherd to fools

  Causelessly bold or afraid.

  They would not abide by my rules.

  Yet they escaped. For I stayed.

  UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE

  Headless, lacking foot and hand,

  Horrible I come to land.

  I beseech all women’s sons

  Know I was a mother once.

  RAPED AND REVENGED

  One used and butchered me: another spied

  Me broken – for which thing an hundred died.

  So it was learned among the heathen hosts

  How much a freeborn woman’s favour costs.

  SALONIKAN GRAVE

  I have watched a thousand days

  Push out and crawl into night

  Slowly as tortoises.

  Now I, too, follow these.

  It is fever, and not the fight –

  Time, not battle, – that slays.

  THE BRIDEGROOM

  Call me not false, beloved,

  If, from thy scarce-known breast

  So little time removed,

  In other arms I rest.

  For this more ancient bride,

  Whom coldly I embrace,

  Was constant at my side

  Before I saw thy face.

  Our marriage, often set –

  By miracle delayed –

  At last is consummate

  And cannot be unmade.

  Live, then, whom Life shall cure,

  Almost, of Memory,

  And leave us to endure

  Its immortality.

  V.A.D (MEDITERRANEAN)

  Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne’er had found,

  These harsh Aegean rocks between, this little virgin drowned,

  Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed through pain

  And – certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.

  ACTORS

  On a Memorial Tablet in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon

  We counterfeited once for your disport

  Men’s joy and sorrow: but our day has passed.

  We pray you pardon all where we fell short –

  Seeing we were your servants to this last.

  JOURNALISTS

  On a Panel in the Hall of the Institute of Journalists

  We have served our day.

  The Gods of the Copybook Headings

  As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

 
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

  Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

  And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

  5

  We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

  That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

  But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

  So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

  We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

  10

  Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place,

  But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

  That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

  With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,

  They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;

  15

  They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;

  So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

  When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

  They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

  But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

  20

  And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’

  On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

  (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

  Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

  And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘The Wages of Sin is Death.’

  25

  In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

  By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

  But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

  And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die.’

  Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

  30

  And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

  That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four –

  And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

  As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –

  There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: –

  35

  That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

  And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

  And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

  When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

  As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

  40

  The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

  The Clerks and the Bells

  (OXFORD IN 1920)

  The Merry clerks of Oxenford they stretch themselves at ease

  Unhelmeted on unbleached sward beneath unshrivelled trees,

  For the leaves, the leaves, are on the bough, the bark is on the bole,

  And East and West men’s housen stand all even-roofed and whole …

  5

  (Men’s housen doored and glazed and floored and whole at every turn!)

  And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: – ‘Time it is to learn!’

  The merry clerks of Oxenford they read and they are told

  Of famous men who drew the sword in furious fights of old.

  They heark and mark it faithfully, but never clerk will write

  10

  What vision rides ’twixt book and eye from any nearer fight.

  (Whose supplication rends the soul? Whose night-long cries repeat?)

  And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: – ‘Time it is to eat!’

  The merry clerks of Oxenford they sit them down anon

  At tables fair with silver-ware and naperies thereon,

  15

  Free to refuse or dainty choose what dish shall seem them good;

  For they have done with single meats, and waters streaked with blood …

  (That three days’ fast is overpast when all those guns said ‘Nay’!)

  And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: – ‘Time it is to play!’

  The merry clerks of Oxenford they hasten one by one

  20

  Or band in companies abroad to ride, or row, or run

  By waters level with fair meads all goldenly bespread,

  Where flash June’s clashing dragon-flies – but no man bows his head,

  (Though bullet-wise June’s dragon-flies deride the fearless air!)

  And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: ‘Time it is for prayer!’

  25

  The pious clerks of Oxenford they kneel at twilight-tide

  For to receive and well believe the Word of Him Who died.

  And, though no present wings of Death hawk hungry round that place,

  Their brows are bent upon their hands that none may see their face –

  (Who set aside the world and died? What life shall please Him best?)

  30

  And so the Bells of Oxenford ring: ‘Time it is to rest!’

  The merry clerks of Oxenford lie under bolt and bar

  Lest they should rake the midnight clouds or chase a sliding star.

  In fear of fine and dread rebuke, they round their full-night sleep,

  And leave that world which once they took for older men to keep,

  35

  (Who walks by dreams what ghostly wood in search of playmate slain?)

  Until the Bells of Oxenford ring in the light again.

  Unburdened breeze, unstricken trees, and all God’s works restored –

  In this way live the merry clerks – the clerks of Oxenford!

  Lollius

  HORACE, BK V, ODE 13

  Why gird at Lollius if he care

  To purchase in the city’s sight,

  With nard and roses for his hair,

  The name of Knight?