Rudyard Kipling

“ 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,
⁠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,
That we may repair the wrong that was done
⁠To the living and the dead! ”

“ Now the Young Men's hearts are troubled for the whisper of the Trues,
⁠Now the Red Gods make their medicine again!
Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched the black-tail mating?
⁠Who hath lain alone to hear the wild-goose cry?
Who hath worked the chosen water where the ouananiche is waiting,
⁠Or the sea-trout's jumping-crazy for the fly?
He must go—go—go away from here!
⁠On the other side the world he's overdue.
'Send your road is clear before you when the old Spring-fret comes o'er you
⁠And the Red Gods call for you! ”

“ The wayside magic, the threshold spells,
⁠Shall soon undo what the North has done—
Because of the sights and the sounds and the smells
⁠That ran with our youth in the eye of the sun!
And Earth accepting shall ask no vows,
⁠Nor the Sea our love nor our lover the Sky. ”

“ Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.
Till our fathers 'stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.
So they bought us freedom—not at little cost—
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost.
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.
Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure,
Whining "He is weak and far"; crying "Time shall cure."
(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people's loins.) ”

“ God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!
Yes, your "Never-never country"—yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further"—till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation. ”

“ And the breeding kestrels cry.
⁠Would I change with my brother a league inland?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!
In the flush of the hot June prime,
⁠O'er smooth flood-tides afire,
I hear him hurry the chime
⁠To the bidding of checked Desire;
⁠Till the sweated ringers tire
And the wild bob-majors die.
⁠Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!
When the smoking scud is blown,
⁠When the greasy wind-rack lowers,
Apart and at peace and alone,
⁠He counts the changeless hours. ”

“ As it were almost cricket—as it were even your play,
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.
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 ”

“ DIRGE OF DEAD SISTERS
Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order
⁠ (Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?)
And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter,
⁠And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?
(Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
⁠Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by—
Let us now remember many honourable women,
⁠Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.) ”

“ Then answered cunning Dives: "Do not gold and hate abide
"At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside?
⁠"With gold and fear and hate
⁠"I have harnessed state to state,
"And with hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.
"For hate men seek a weapon, for fear they seek a shield—
"Keener blades and broader targes than their frantic neighbours wield—
⁠"For gold I arm their hands,
⁠"And for gold I buy their lands,
"And for gold I sell their enemies the yield. ”

“ She came to the Old Queen's presence, in the Hall of Our Thousand Years—
In the Hall of the Five Free Nations that are peers among their peers:
Royal she gave the greeting, loyal she bowed the head,
Crying—"Crown me, my Mother!" And the Old Queen stood and said:—
"How can I crown thee further? ”

“ THE EXPLORER
"There's no sense in going further—it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it—broke my land and sowed my crop—
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated—so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!" ”

“ It all came over me in one act
⁠Quick as a shot through the brain—
With the smell of the wattle round Lichtenberg,
⁠Riding in, in the rain!
I have forgotten a hundred fights,
⁠But one I shall not forget—
With the raindrops bunging up my sights
⁠And my eyes bunged up with wet;
And through the crack and the stink of the cordite
⁠ (Ah Christ! My country again!) ”

“ The line that holds the rending course,
⁠The hate that swings the whole:
The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom,
⁠At gaze and gone again—
The Brides of Death that wait the groom—
⁠The Choosers of the Slain!
Offshore where sea and skyline blend
⁠In rain, the daylight dies ”

“ Ere we came to a scorched and a scornful land
⁠That did not know our God;
As we remember the sacrifice
⁠Dead men an hundred laid—
Slain while they served His mysteries
⁠And that He would not aid. ”

“ We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good!
It was our fault, and our very great fault—and now we must turn it to use;
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse!
So the more we work and the less we talk the better results we shall get—
We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet! ”

“ It is his will that he look forth
⁠Across the world he won—
The granite of the ancient North—
⁠Great spaces washed with sun.
There shall he patient make his seat
⁠ (As when the Death he dared) ,
And there await a people's feet
⁠In the paths that he prepared. ”

“ His Sea as his fathers have dared—his Sea as his children shall dare it—
⁠His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees—inland where the slayer may slay him
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him—
His Sea at the first that betrayed—at the last that shall never betray him—
⁠His Sea that his being fulfils? ”

“ Idle—except for your boasting—and what is your boasting worth
If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth?
Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set,
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, or kinsfolk called from afar,
But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war. ”

“ What good thing shall I wish thee that I have not wished before?
"Shall I give thee delight in dominion—mere pride of thy setting forth?
Nay, we be women together—we know what that lust is worth.
Peace in thy utmost borders, and strength on a road untrod? ”

“ We seek no more the tempest for delight,
⁠We skirt no more the indraught and the shoal—
We ask no more of any day or night
⁠Than to come with least adventure to our goal
⁠ (Foul weather!)
What we find we needs must brook, but we do not go to look,
⁠Nor tempt the Lord our God that saved us whole! ”

“ The strength of twice three thousand horse
⁠That serve the one command;
The hand that heaves the headlong force,
⁠The hate that backs the hand:
The doom-bolt in the darkness freed,
⁠The mine that splits the main ”

“ For heathen heart that puts her trust
⁠In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
⁠And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord! ”

“ For the steeds of their desire
"They have sold me seven harvests that I sell to Crowning Tyre;
⁠"And the Tyrian sweeps the plains
⁠"With a thousand hired wains,
"And the Cities keep the peace and—share the hire. ”

“ Stands, a very woman, most
⁠Perfect and adorèd!
On your feet, and let them know
This is why we love her!
For she is South Africa,
She is our South Africa,
Is our own South Africa,
⁠Africa all over! ”

“ Bow we the knee to Baal,"
⁠Said our Lady of the Snows.
"My speech is clean and single,
⁠I talk of common things—
Words of the wharf and the market-place
⁠And the ware the merchant brings:
Favour to those I favour,
⁠But a stumbling-block to my foes.
Many there be that hate us,"
⁠Said our Lady of the Snows. ”

“ Walking along the wreck of the dykes, watching the work of the seas,
These were the dykes our fathers made to our great profit and ease;
But the peace is gone and the profit is gone, and the old sure day withdrawn ...
That our own houses show as strange when we come back in the dawn! ”

“ That deeper than our speech and thought,
⁠Beyond our reason's sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
⁠Yearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love,
⁠But since man's heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
⁠Beloved over all. ”

“ There were vipers, flies, and sandstorms, there was cholera and thirst,
⁠But Pharaoh done the best he ever done.
⁠Down the desert, down the railway, down the river,
⁠Like Israelites from bondage so he came,
⁠'Tween the clouds o' dust and fire to the land of his desire,
⁠And his Moses, it was Sergeant Whatisname!
We are eating dirt in handfuls for to save our daily bread,
⁠Which we have to buy from those that hate us most,
And we must not raise the money where the Sergeant raised the dead. ”

“ So much, and scarce so much, ye hold
⁠The meaning of Kamakura?
But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
⁠No nearer than Kamakura? ”

“ With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife,
⁠He had no part whose hands were clear of gain;
But subtle, strong, and stubborn, gave his life
⁠To a lost cause, and knew the gift was vain.
Later shall rise a people, sane and great,
⁠Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one ”

“ Now the Four-way Lodge is opened—now the Smokes of Council rise—
⁠Pleasant smokes, ere yet 'twixt trail and trail they choose—
Now the girths and ropes are tested: now they pack their last supplies:
⁠Now our Young Men go to dance before the Trues! ”

“ 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! ”

“ That spy upon our matings,
⁠That rope us where we run—
They know the strong White Horses
⁠From father unto son.
We breathe about their cradles,
⁠We race their babes ashore,
We snuff against their thresholds,
⁠We nuzzle at their door ”

“ Yes, we shall be perfectly pleased with our work, and that is the perfectest Hell of it!
This is our lot if we live so long and listen to those who love us—
That we are shunned by the people about and shamed by the Powers above us. ”

“ And for one the lakeside lilies where the bull-moose waits the cow,
⁠And for one the mule-train coughing in the dust.
Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilight? Who hath heard the birch-log burning?
⁠Who is quick to read the noises of the night? ”

“ A Nation spoke to a Nation,
⁠A Queen sent word to a Throne:
"Daughter am I in my mother's house,
⁠But mistress in my own.
The gates are mine to open,
⁠As the gates are mine to close,
And I set my house in order,"
⁠Said our Lady of the Snows. ”

“ Meetings, greetings, and voices
⁠Of women talking with men.
So we return to our places,
⁠As out on the bridge she rolls;
And the darkness covers our faces,
⁠And the darkness re-enters our souls. ”

“ To force him discover his business by sea.
And when we have wakened the lust of a foe,
To draw him by flight toward our bullies we go,
Till, 'ware of strange smoke stealing nearer, he flies—
Or our bullies close in for to make him good prize. ”

“ Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.
Strangers of his council, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.
We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use. ”

“ By open speech and simple,
⁠An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit,
⁠And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden—
⁠The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine
⁠And bid the sickness cease ”