Kipling: Poems

by Rudyard Kipling

Fiction, did all her work and more than all,

  With so much zeal, devotion, tact, and care,

  That no one noticed Truth was otherwhere.

  Then came a War when, bombed and gassed and mined,

  Truth rose once more, perforce, to meet mankind,

  And through the dust and glare and wreck of things,

  Beheld a phantom on unbalanced wings,

  Reeling and groping, dazed, dishevelled, dumb,

  But semaphoring direr deeds to come.

  Truth hailed and bade her stand; the quavering shade

  Clung to her knees and babbled, ‘Sister, aid!

  I am – I was – Thy Deputy, and men

  Besought me for my useful tongue or pen

  To gloss their gentle deeds, and I complied,

  And they and thy demands, were satisfied.

  But this –’ she pointed o’er the blistered plain,

  Where men as Gods and devils wrought amain –

  ‘This is beyond me! Take thy work again.’

  Tablets and pen transferred, she fled afar,

  And Truth assumed the record of the War …

  She saw, she heard, she read, she tried to tell

  Facts beyond precedent and parallel –

  Unfit to hint or breathe, much less to write,

  But happening every minute, day and night.

  She called for proof. It came. The dossiers grew.

  She marked them, first, ‘Return. This can’t be true.’

  Then, underneath the cold official word:

  ‘This is not really half of what occurred.’

  She faced herself at last, the story runs,

  And telegraphed her sister. ‘Come at once.

  Facts out of hand. Unable overtake

  Without your aid. Come back for Truth’s own sake!

  Co-equal rank and powers if you agree.

  They need us both, but you far more than me!’

  WE AND THEY

  Father, Mother, and Me,

  Sister and Auntie say

  All the people like us are We,

  And every one else is They.

  And They live over the sea,

  While we live over the way,

  But – would you believe it? – They look upon We

  As only a sort of They!

  We eat pork and beef

  With cow-horn-handled knives.

  They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,

  Are horrified out of Their lives;

  While They who live up a tree,

  And feast on grubs and clay,

  (Isn’t it scandalous?) look upon We

  As a simply disgusting They!

  We shoot birds with a gun

  They stick lions with spears.

  Their full-dress is un-.

  We dress up to Our ears.

  They like Their friends for tea.

  We like Our friends to stay;

  And, after all that, They look upon We

  As an utterly ignorant They!

  We eat kitcheny food.

  We have doors that latch.

  They drink milk or blood,

  Under an open thatch.

  We have Doctors to fee.

  They have Wizards to pay.

  And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We

  As a quite impossible They!

  All good people agree,

  And all good people say,

  All nice people, like Us, are We

  And every one else is They:

  But if you cross over the sea,

  Instead of over the way,

  You may end by (think of it!) looking on We

  As only a sort of They!

  UNTIMELY

  Nothing in life has been made by man for man’s using

  But it was shown long since to man in ages

  Lost as the name of the maker of it.

  Who received oppression and shame for his wages –

  Hate, avoidance, and scorn in his daily dealings –

  Until he perished, wholly confounded.

  More to be pitied than he are the wise

  Souls which foresaw the evil of loosing

  Knowledge or Art before time, and aborted

  Noble devices and deep-wrought healings,

  Lest offence should arise.

  Heaven delivers on earth the Hour that cannot be

  thwarted,

  Neither advanced, at the price of a world nor a soul,

  and its Prophet

  Comes through the blood of the vanguards who

  dreamed – too soon – it had sounded.

  GERTRUDE’S PRAYER

  That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,

  Nor water out of bitter well make clean;

  An evil thing returneth at the end,

  Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.

  Whereby the more is sorrow in certame –

  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

  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;

  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!

  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;

  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 –

  (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,

  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

  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.

  ‘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

  ‘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

  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

  Re-blinded the wakening land;

  For they showed, by answering echoes,

  And chasing clouds as they rose,

  How shadows could stand for bulwarks

  Between mankind and its woes.

  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,

 
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 –

  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 along with Death,

  And to second life returns,

  Squanders little time or breath

  On his fellow man’s concerns.

  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

  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;

  Or prepared in secrecy

  Sudden Things to break its heart –

  All the lore of No-Man’s Land

  Steels his soul and arms his hand.

  So, if conflict vex his life

  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!

  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.

  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 –

  Which I shall never find –

  Somewhere that does not carry the sound

  Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

  THE STORM CONE

  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.

  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,

  Let no man look for his relief.

  Only darkness hides the shape

  Of further peril to escape.

  It is decreed that we abide

  The weight of gale against the tide

  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,

  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 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:

  AND FOR THE LITTLE, LITTLE SPAN

  THE DEAD ARE BORNE IN MIND,

  SEEK NOT TO QUESTION OTHER THAN

  THE BOOKS I LEAVE BEHIND.