Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems

by Rudyard Kipling

  The sheer hosts of Heaven above –

  The grey warlock Ocean beside;

  And shall feel the full centuries move

  20

  To Her purpose and pride.

  Though a stranger shall he understand,

  As though it were old in his blood,

  The lives that caught fire ’neath Her hand –

  The fires that were tamed to Her mood.

  25

  And the roar of the wind shall refashion,

  And the wind-driven torches recall,

  The passing of Time and the passion

  Of Youth over all!

  And, by virtue of magic unspoken

  30

  (What need She should utter Her power?)

  The frost at his heart shall be broken

  And his spirit be changed in that hour –

  Changed and renewed in that hour!

  Memories

  1930

  ‘The eradication of memories of the Great War.’

  Socialist Government Organ

  The Socialist Government speaks:

  Though all the Dead were all forgot

  And razed were every tomb,

  The Worm – the Worm that dieth not

  Compels Us to our doom.

  5

  Though all which once was England stands

  Subservient to Our will,

  The Dead of whom we washed Our hands,

  They have observance still.

  We laid no finger to Their load.

  10

  We multiplied Their woes.

  We used Their dearly-opened road

  To traffic with Their foes:

  And yet to Them men turn their eyes,

  To Them are vows renewed

  15

  Of Faith, Obedience, Sacrifice,

  Honour and Fortitude!

  Which things must perish. But Our hour

  Comes not by staves or swords

  So much as, subtly, through the power

  20

  Of small corroding words.

  No need to make the plot more plain

  By any open thrust;

  But – see Their memory is slain

  Long ere Their bones are dust!

  25

  Wisely, but yearly, filch some wreath –

  Lay some proud rite aside –

  And daily tarnish with Our breath

  The ends for which They died.

  Distract, deride, decry, confuse –

  30

  (Or – if it serve Us – pray!)

  So presently We break the use

  And meaning of Their day!

  Gertrude’s Prayer

  That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,

  Nor water out of bitter well make clean;

  All evil thing returneth at the end,

  Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.

  5

  Whereby the more is sorrow in certaine –

  Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe.

  To-bruizèd be that slender, sterting spray

  Out of the oake’s rind that should betide

  A branch of girt and goodliness, straightway

  10

  Her spring is turnèd on herself, and wried

  And knotted like some gall or veiney wen. –

  Dayspring mishandled cometh not agen.

  Noontide repayeth never morning-bliss –

  Sith noon to morn is incomparable;

  15

  And, so it be our dawning goth amiss,

  None other after-hour serveth well.

  Ah! Jesu-Moder, pitie my oe paine –

  Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe!

  Four-Feet

  I have done mostly what most men do,

  And pushed it out of my mind;

  But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,

  Four-Feet trotting behind.

  5

  Day after day, the whole day through –

  Wherever my road inclined –

  Four-Feet said, ‘I am coming with you!’

  And trotted along behind.

  Now I must go by some other round, –

  10

  Which I shall never find –

  Somewhere that does not carry the sound

  Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

  The Disciple

  He that hath a Gospel

  To loose upon Mankind,

  Though he serve it utterly –

  Body, soul and mind –

  5

  Though he go to Calvary

  Daily for its gain –

  It is His Disciple

  Shall make his labour vain.

  He that hath a Gospel

  10

  For all earth to own –

  Though he etch it on the steel,

  Or carve it on the stone –

  Not to be misdoubted

  Through the after-days –

  15

  It is His Disciple

  Shall read it many ways.

  It is His Disciple

  (Ere Those Bones are dust)

  Who shall change the Charter,

  20

  Who shall split the Trust –

  Amplify distinctions,

  Rationalize the Claim,

  Preaching that the Master

  Would have done the same.

  25

  It is His Disciple

  Who shall tell us how

  Much the Master would have scrapped

  Had he lived till now –

  What he would have modified

  30

  Of what he said before –

  It is His Disciple

  Shall do this and more …

  He that hath a Gospel

  Whereby Heaven is won

  35

  (Carpenter, or Cameleer,

  Or Maya’s dreaming son),

  Many swords shall pierce Him,

  Mingling blood with gall;

  But His Own Disciple

  40

  Shall wound Him worst of all!

  The Threshold

  In their deepest caverns of limestone

  They pictured the Gods of Food –

  The Horse, the Elk, and the Bison –

  That the hunting might be good;

  5

  With the Gods of Death and Terror –

  The Mammoth, Tiger, and Bear.

  And the pictures moved in the torchlight

  To show that the gods were there!

  But that was before Ionia –

  10

  (Or the Seven Holy Islands of Ionia)

  Any of the Mountains of Ionia,

  Had bared their peaks to the air.

  The close years packed behind them,

  As the glaciers bite and grind,

  15

  Filling the new-gouged valleys

  With Gods of every kind.

  Gods of all-reaching power –

  Gods of all-searching eyes –

  But each to be wooed by worship

  20

  And won by sacrifice.

  Till, after many winters, rose Ionia –

  (Strange men brooding in Ionia)

  Crystal-eyed Sages of Ionia

  Who said, ‘These tales are lies.

  25

  We dream one Breath in all things,

  That blows all things between.

  We dream one Matter in all things –

  Eternal, changeless, unseen.

  That the heart of the Matter is single

  30

  Till the Breath shall bid it bring forth –

  By choosing or losing its neighbour –

  All things made upon Earth.’

  But Earth was wiser than Ionia

  (Babylon and Egypt than Ionia)

  And they overlaid the teaching of Ionia

  35

  And the Truth was choked at birth.

  It died at the Gate of Knowledge –

/>   The Key to the Gate in its hand –

  And the anxious priests and wizards

  40

  Re-blinded the wakening land;

  For they showed, by answering echoes,

  And chasing clouds as they rose,

  How shadows should stand for bulwarks

  Between mankind and its woes.

  45

  It was then that men bethought them of Ionia

  (The few that had not allforgot Ionia)

  Or the Word that was whispered in Ionia;

  And they turned from the shadows and the shows.

  They found one Breath in all things,

  50

  That moves all things between.

  They proved one Matter in all things –

  Eternal, changeless, unseen;

  That the heart of the Matter was single

  Till the Breath should bid it bring forth –

  55

  Even as men whispered in Ionia,

  (Resolute, unsatisfied Ionia)

  Ere the Word was stifled in Ionia –

  All things known upon earth!

  The Expert

  Youth that trafficked long with Death,

  And to second life returns,

  Squanders little time or breath

  On his fellow-man’s concerns.

  5

  Earnèd peace is all he asks

  To fulfil his broken tasks.

  Yet, if he find war at home

  (Waspish and importunate),

  He hath means to overcome

  10

  Any warrior at his gate;

  For the past he buried brings

  Back unburiable things –

  Nights that he lay out to spy

  Whence and when the raid might start;

  15

  Or prepared in secrecy

  Sudden blows to break its heart –

  All the lore of No-Man’s Land

  Moves his soul and arms his hand.

  So, if conflict vex his life

  20

  Where he thought all conflict done,

  He, resuming ancient strife,

  Springs his mine or trains his gun,

  And, in mirth more dread than wrath,

  Wipes the nuisance from his path!

  The Storm Cone

  1932

  This is the midnight – let no star

  Delude us – dawn is very far.

  This is the tempest long foretold –

  Slow to make head but sure to hold.

  5

  Stand by! The lull ’twixt blast and blast

  Signals the storm is near, not past;

  And worse than present jeopardy

  May our forlorn to-morrow be.

  If we have cleared the expectant reef,

  10

  Let no man look for his relief.

  Only the darkness hides the shape

  Of further peril to escape.

  It is decreed that we abide

  The weight of gale against the tide

  15

  And those huge waves the outer main

  Sends in to set us back again.

  They fall and whelm. We strain to hear

  The pulses of her labouring gear,

  Till the deep throb beneath us proves,

  20

  After each shudder and check, she moves!

  She moves, with all save purpose lost,

  To make her offing from the coast;

  But, till she fetches open sea,

  Let no man deem that he is free!

  The Bonfires

  1933

  ‘Gesture … outlook … vision … avenue … example … achievement … appeasement … limit of risk.’

  Common Political Form

  We know the Rocket’s upward whizz;

  We know the Boom before the Bust.

  We know the whistling Wail which is

  The Stick returning to the Dust.

  5

  We know how much to take on trust

  Of any promised Paradise.

  We know the Pie – likewise the Crust.

  We know the Bonfire on the Ice.

  We know the Mountain and the Mouse.

  10

  We know Great Cry and Little Wool.

  We know the purseless Ears of Sows.

  We know the Frog that aped the Bull.

  We know, whatever Trick we pull,

  (Ourselves have gambled once or twice)

  15

  A Bobtailed Flush is not a Full

  We know the Bonfire on the Ice.

  We know that Ones and Ones make Twos –

  Till Demos votes them Three or Nought.

  We know the Fenris Wolf is loose.

  20

  We know what Fight has not been fought.

  We know the Father to the Thought

  Which argues Babe and Cockatrice

  Would play together, were they taught.

  We know that Bonfire on the Ice.

  25

  We know that Thriving comes by Thrift.

  We know the Key must keep the Door.

  We know his Boot-straps cannot lift

  The frightened Waster off the Floor.

  We know these things, and we deplore

  30

  That not by any Artifice

  Can they be altered. Furthermore

  We know the Bonfires on the Ice!

  The Appeal

  If I have given you delight

  By aught that I have done,

  Let me lie quiet in that night

  Which shall be yours anon:

  5

  And for the little, little, span

  The dead are borne in mind,

  Seek not to question other than

  The books I leave behind.

  Notes

  The title of each poem is followed by details of the poem’s first publication, and then, where applicable, by the title of the volume in which it was subsequently collected.

  ‘We are very slightly changed’ (p. 1). The opening poem of Departmental Ditties (1886) with the title ‘General Summary’. As it also serves here as the opening poem, it is placed slightly out of chronology. ‘Dowb’ (line 7): ‘Take care of Dowb’ was a proverbial jibe at the widespread practice of nepotism in Victorian government and army appointments. Line 23, Cheops, King of Egypt, 2900–2877 BC; lines 26–9, Joseph… Pharaoh, Genesis 41.

  ‘The Undertaker’s Horse’ (p. 2). Civil and Military Gazette, 8 October 1885; Departmental Ditties. Line 22, dâk, stage of a journey; line 36, marigolds, used in India to decorate graves.

  ‘The Story of Uriah’ (p. 4). Civil and Military Gazette, 3 March 1886; Departmental Ditties. An updated version of the story of David and Bathsheba, as the biblical reference indicates. Simla (line 3), a hill-station in the lower Himalayas, the summer residence of the Viceroy and the imperial government, and a favoured holiday resort for officials’ wives. It was famed for its cool climate, unlike Quetta (line 1), the town in what is now Pakistan to which Jack Barrett is sent. The Hurnai (line 26), a mountain pass in Afghanistan.