Rudyard Kipling

“ And Delhi town was very near, but nearer was the foe.
Yea, Delhi town was very near when Lalun whispered:—‘Slay!
‘Lord of my life, the mare sinks fast—stab deep and let me die!’
But Scindia would not, and the maid tore free and flung away,
And turning as she fell we heard the clattering Populzai.
Then Scindia checked the gasping mare that rocked and groaned for breath,
And wheeled to charge and plunged the knife a hands-breadth in her side—
The hunter and the hunted know how that last pause is death—
The blood had chilled about her heart, she reared and fell and died.
Our Gods were kind. ”

“ But, whether Kysh decreed, or from Taman
The impotent tongue found utterance we know
As little as the bats beneath the eaves.
He cried so that they heard who stood without:—
‘To the Unlighted Shrine!’ and crept aside
Into the shadow of his fallen God
And whimpered, and Bisesa went her way.
That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,
Dropped as a cloth upon the dead, and rose
Above the roofs, and by the Unlighted Shrine
Lay as the slimy water of the troughs
When murrain thins the cattle of Er-Heb:
And through the mist men heard the Red Horse feed. ”

“ The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life:
‘Once I ha’ laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave,
‘And thrice I ha’ patted my God on the head that men might call me brave.’
The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool:
‘Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool? ”

“ When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell—
The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stood
Where the black crosses hung o’er the Kuttamow flood.
As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide
The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,
Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,
When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.
As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,
And men who had fought with O’Neil for the life
Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife. ”

“ To the hail of the Nordenfeldt.
‘Captain, they lack us through and through;
‘The chilled steel bolts are swift!
‘We have emptied the bunkers in open sea,
‘Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be.’
And he answered, ‘Let her drift.’
It was our war-ship ‘Clampherdown,’
Swung round upon the tide,
Her two dumb guns glared south and north,
And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth,
And she ground the cruiser’s side.
‘Captain, they cry, the fight is done,
‘They bid you send your sword.’
And he answered, ‘Grapple her stern and bow.
‘They have asked for the steel. ”

“ Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai,
Young Sahib with the yellow hair—
Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie,
Fat herds below Bonair.
The one I’ll shoot at twilight tide,
At dawn I’ll drive the other;
The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,
The white man for his brother.
’Tis war, red war, I’ll give you then,
War till my sinews fail;
For the wrong you have done to a chief of men
And a thief of the Zukka Kheyl.
And if I fall to your hand afresh
I give you leave for the sin,
That you cram my throat with the foul pig’s flesh
And swing me in the skin! ”

“ The West Wind called:—‘In squadrons the thought less galleons fly
‘That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.
‘They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,
‘Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath.
‘I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole;
‘They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll,
‘For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath,
‘And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death. ”

“ The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold,
And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hole,
And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt:—
‘Good Sir, we ha’ dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut.
‘Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus:
‘He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us. ”

“ We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died. ”

“ Should swerve one hair’s-breadth from the pulse’s path,
And chafe his brain, Evarra mowed alone,
Rag-wrapped, among the cattle in the fields,
Counting his fingers, jesting with the trees,
And mocking at the mist, until his God
Drove him to labour. Out of dung and horns
Dropped in the mire he made a monstrous God,
Abhorrent, shapeless, crowned with plaintain tufts,
And when the cattle lowed at twilight time,
He dreamed it was the clamour of lost crowds,
And howled among the beasts: ‘Thus Gods are made,
‘And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.’
Thereat the cattle bellowed . . . ”

“ And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
‘Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
‘The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die—
‘The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!’
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone. ”

“ Don’t look nor take ’eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you’re livin’, and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier. . .
When ’arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don’t call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
She’s human as you are—you treat her as sich,
An’ she’ll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier. . .
When shakin’ their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o’ the enemy wheel into line;
Shoot low at the limbers an’ don’t mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier. ”

“ And the nodding mother sighed,
‘’Tis sorrow makes ye dull;
‘Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern,
‘Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?’
‘The terns are blown inland,
‘The grey gull follows the plough.
‘’Twas never a bird, the voice I heard,
‘’O mother, I hear it now!’
‘Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;
‘The child is passed from harm,
‘’Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest,
‘And the feel of an empty arm.’
She put her mother aside,
‘In Mary’s name let be! ”

“ And they said: ‘The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away.
‘We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind
‘And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find:
‘We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone,
‘And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own.’
The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low:—
‘I’m all o’er-sib to Adam’s breed that I should bid him go. ”

“ If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down,
You’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends:
We are not ruled by murderers, but only—by their friends. ”

“ But ever a blight on their labours lay,
And ever their quarry would vanish away,
Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone
Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone:
And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,
The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.
The word of a scout—a march by night—
A rush through the mist—a scattering fight—
A volley from cover—a corpse in the clearing—
The glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring—
The flare of a village—the tally of slain—
And . . . the Boh was abroad ‘on the raid’ again! ”

“ Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth. ”

“ Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
And the wildest tales are true,
And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
And life runs large on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new. ”

“ He has taken toll of the North and the South—his glory reacheth far,
And they tell the tale of his charity from Balkh to Kandahar.
Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet,
The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street,
And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife,
Tho’ he who held the longer purse might hold the longer life. ”

“ Noon’s eye beheld that shame of flight, the shadows fell, we fled
Where steadfast as the wheeling kite he followed in our train;
The black wolf warred where we had warred, the jackal mocked our dead,
And terror born of twilight tide made mad the labouring brain.
I gasped:—‘A kingdom waits my lord; her love is but her own. ”

“ Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, ’ow’s yer soul?’
But it’s ‘Thin red line of ’eroes’ when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s ‘Thin red line of ’eroes’ when the drums begin to roll. ”

“ And what should they know of England who only England know?—
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag! ”

“ A day shall mar, a day shall cure for her, but what for thee?
‘Cut loose the girl: he follows fast. Cut loose and ride alone!’
Then Scindia ’twixt his blistered lips:—‘My Queens’ Queen shall she be!
‘Of all who eat my bread last night ’twas she alone that came
‘To seek her love between the spears and find her crown therein!
‘One shame is mine to-day, what need the weight of double shame?
‘If once we reach the Delhi gate, though all be lost, I win!’
We rode—the white mare failed—her trot a staggering stumble grew,—
The cooking-smoke of even rose and weltered and hung low ”

“ The children of the hills of Khost before our lances ran,
We drove the black Rohillas back as cattle to the pen;
’Twas then we needed Mulhar Rao to end what we began,
A thousand men had saved the charge; he fled the field with ten! ”

“ We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.
Four things greater than all things are,—
Women and Horses and Power and War. ”

“ The Colonel’s son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat—
Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat.
He’s up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,
Till he was aware of his father’s mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai,
Till he was aware of his father’s mare with Kamal upon her back,
And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack.
He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.
‘Ye shoot like a soldier,’ Kamal said. ”

“ Oh, there’ll surely come a day
When they’ll grant you all your pay,
And treat you as a Christian ought to do;
So, until that day comes round,
Heaven keep you safe and sound,
And, Thomas, here’s my best respects to you. ”

“ Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against suttee, would have broken out of the palace had not the gates been barred. But one of them, disguised as the King’s favourite dancing-girl, passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the court, to kill her. ”

“ And the Devil bubbled below the keel: ‘It’s human, but is it Art?’
The tale is as old as the Eden Tree—and new as the new-cut tooth—
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth ”

“ But it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide. ”

“ Go shout it to the emerald seas—give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen are cleared—and this is how:—
They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer with council’s best advice,
But—sure it keeps their honour white—the learned Court believes
They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.
They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman’s hide,
They never marked a man for death—what fault of theirs he died?—
They only said ‘intimidate,’ and talked and went away—
By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they! ”

“ A face looked down in the gathering day,
And laughing spoke from the wall:
‘Ohé, they mourn here: let me by—
‘Azizun, the Lucknow nautch-girl, I?
‘When the house is rotten, the rats must fly,
‘And I seek another thrall. ”

“ Their good guns guarded the great grey sides that were thirty foot in the sheer,
When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer.
Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze,
Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas.
Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled,
And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold.
‘I ha’ paid Port dues for your Law,’ quoth he, ‘and where is the Law ye boast
‘If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast? ”