Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught.
15
Ye hindered and hampered and crippled; ye thrust out of sight and away
Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for pay.
Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed,
At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field.
Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land’s longsuffering star),
20
When your strong men cheered in their millions while your striplings went to the war.
Sons of the sheltered city – unmade, unhandled, unmeet –
Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the street.
And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath?
Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death?
25
So! And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize?
How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice?
But ye said, ‘Their valour shall show them’; but ye said, ‘The end is close.’
And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes:
And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride,
30
Ere – ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride!
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.
Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie,
Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by
35
Waiting some easy wonder, hoping some saving sign –
Idle – openly idle – in the lee of the forespent Line.
Idle – except for your boasting – and what is your boasting worth
If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth?
40
Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set,
40 Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget
It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep.
Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep.
Men, not children, servants, nor kinsfolk called from afar,
But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war.
45
Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same,
Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game –
As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste,
But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste.
As it were almost cricket – as it were even your play,
50
Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day.
So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake
In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake.
So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap
Forthright, accoutred, accepting – alert from the wells of sleep.
55
So at the threat ye shall summon – so at the need ye shall send
Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end;
Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise,
Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice …
But ye say, ‘It will mar our comfort.’ Ye say, ‘It will minish our trade.’
60
Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid?
For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn?
(Light, ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.)
Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds,
With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods?
65
Will the rabbit war with your foemen – the red deer horn them for hire?
Your kept cock-pheasant keep you? – he is master of many a shire.
Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt,
Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns melt?
Will ye pray them, or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore?
70
Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more?
Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both?
Pride by Insolence chastened? Indolence purged by Sloth?)
No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid?
Also your gods are many. No doubt but your gods shall aid.
75
Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease;
Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes;
Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood – pavement gods –
These shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods?
From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent,
80
And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent?
When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips,
When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your lips;
When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke,
Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke?
85
No doubt but ye are the People – absolute, strong, and wise;
Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes.
On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the saving lies!
‘The Camel’s hump is an ugly lump’
The Camel’s hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the Zoo;
But uglier yet is the Hump we get
From having too little to do.
5
Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo,
We get the Hump –
Cameelious Hump –
The Hump that is black and blue!
10
We climb out of bed with frouzly head,
And a snarly-yarly voice.
We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl
At our bath and our boots and our toys;
And there ought to be a corner for me
15
(And I know there is one for you)
When we get the Hump –
Cameelious Hump –
The Hump that is black and blue!
The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
20
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
And dig till you gently perspire;
And then you will find that the sun and the wind,
And the Djinn of the Garden too,
25
Have lifted the Hump –
The horrible Hump –
The Hump that is black and blue!
I get it as well as you-oo-oo –
If I haven’t enough to do-oo-oo!
30
We all get Hump –
Cameelious Hump –
Kiddies and grown-ups too!
‘I keep six honest serving-men’
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew),
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
5
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
10
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For th
ey are hungry men.
But different folk have different views.
I know a person small –
15
She keeps ten million serving-men
Who get no rest at all!
She sends ’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes –
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
20
And seven million Whys!
‘I’ve never sailed the Amazon’
I’ve never sailed the Amazon,
I’ve never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdalena,
They can go there when they will!
5
Yes, weekly from Southampton,
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down – roll down to Rio!)
And I’d like to roll to Rio
10
Some day before I’m old!
I’ve never seen a Jaguar,
Nor yet an Armadill –
o dilloing in his armour,
And I s’pose I never will,
15
Unless I go to Rio
These wonders to behold –
Roll down – roll down to Rio –
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio
20
Some day before I’m old!
‘Pussy can sit by the fire and sing’
Pussy can sit by the fire and sing,
Pussy can climb a tree,
Or play with a silly old cork and string
To ’muse herself, not me.
5
But I like Binkie my dog, because
He knows how to behave;
So, Binkie’s the same as the First Friend was,
And I am the Man in the Cave!
Pussy will play Man Friday till
10
It’s time to wet her paw
And make her walk on the window-sill
(For the footprint Crusoe saw);
Then she fluffles her tail and mews,
And scratches and won’t attend.
15
But Binkie will play whatever I choose,
And he is my true First Friend!
Pussy will rub my knees with her head
Pretending she loves me hard;
But the very minute I go to my bed
20
Pussy runs out in the yard,
And there she stays till the morning-light;
So I know it is only pretend.
But Binkie, he snores at my feet all night,
And he is my Firstest Friend!
The Settler
(SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ENDED, MAY 1902)
Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead.
5
Here, where the senseless bullet fell,
And the barren shrapnel burst,
I will plant a tree, I will dig a well,
Against the heat and the thirst.
Here, in a large and sunlit land,
10
Where no wrong bites to the bone,
I will lay my hand in my neighbour’s hand,
And together we will atone
For the set folly and the red breach
And the black waste of it all;
15
Giving and taking counsel each
Over the cattle-kraal.
Here will we join against our foes –
The hailstroke and the storm,
And the red and rustling cloud that blows
20
The locust’s mile-deep swarm.
Frost and murrain and floods let loose
Shall launch us side by side
In the holy wars that have no truce
’Twixt seed and harvest tide.
25
Earth, where we rode to slay or be slain,
Our love shall redeem unto life.
We will gather and lead to her lips again
The waters of ancient strife,
From the far and the fiercely guarded streams
30
And the pools where we lay in wait,
Till the corn cover our evil dreams
And the young corn our hate.
And when we bring old fights to mind,
We will not remember the sin –
35
If there be blood on his head of my kind,
Or blood on my head of his kin –
For the ungrazed upland, the untilled lea
Cry, and the fields forlorn:
‘The dead must bury their dead, but ye –
40
Ye serve an host unborn.’
Bless then, Our God, the new-yoked plough
And the good beasts that draw,
And the bread we eat in the sweat of our brow
According to Thy Law.
45
After us cometh a multitude –
Prosper the work of our hands,
That we may feed with our land’s food
The folk of all our lands!
Here, in the waves and the troughs of the plains,
50
Where the healing stillness lies,
And the vast, benignant sky restrains
And the long days make wise –
Bless to our use the rain and the sun
And the blind seed in its bed,
55
That we may repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead!
‘Before a midnight breaks in storm’
Before a midnight breaks in storm,
Or herded sea in wrath,
Ye know what wavering gusts inform
The greater tempest’s path;
5
Till the loosed wind
Drive all from mind,
Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry,
O’ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.
Ere rivers league against the land
10
In piratry of flood,
Ye know what waters steal and stand
Where seldom water stood.
Yet who will note,
Till fields afloat,
15
And washen carcass and the returning well,
Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?
Ye know who use the Crystal Ball
(To peer by stealth on Doom),
The Shade that, shaping first of all,
20
Prepares an empty room.
Then doth It pass
Like breath from glass,
But, on the extorted Vision bowed intent,
No man considers why It came or went.
25
Before the years reborn behold
Themselves with stranger eye,
And the sport-making Gods of old,
Selected Poems Page 13