Rudyard Kipling

“ The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go!
Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars—
By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail—
As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail.
We bridge across the dark, and bid the helmsman have a care,
The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer;
From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains
The lover from the sea-rim drawn—his love in English lanes. ”

“ Turn, for the world is thine. Mother, be proud of thy seed!
Count, are we feeble or few? Hear, is our speech so rude?
Look, are we poor in the land? Judge, are we men of The Blood?
Those that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go call them in— [11]
We that were bred overseas wait and would speak with our kin.
Not in the dark do we fight—haggle and flout and gibe;
Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for a bribe.
Gifts have we only to-day—Love without promise or fee—
Hear, for thy children speak, from the uttermost parts of the sea:
The Song of the Cities. Bombay. ”

“ Let up and let us die!
Quit firing, by the bow there—quit! Call off the Baltic's crew!
You're sure of Hell as me or Rube—but wait till we get through."
There went no word between the ships, but thick and quick and loud [66]
The life-blood drummed on the dripping decks, with the fog-dew from the shroud,
The sea-pull drew them side by side, gunnel to gunnel laid,
And they felt the sheerstrakes pound and clear, but never a word was said.
Then Reuben Paine cried out again before his spirit passed:
"Have I followed the sea for thirty years to die in the dark at last? ”

“ Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,
Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep.
Here in the womb of the world—here on the tie-ribs of earth
Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat—
Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth—
For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.
They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time ”

“ You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine.
Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck,
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.
All's well—all's well aboard her—she's dropped you far behind,
With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.
Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make? [122]
You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake? ”

“ And Ung held down his head.
"Thou hast not stood to the aurochs when the red snow reeks of the fight;
Men have no time at the houghing to count his curls aright:
And the heart of the hairy mammoth thou sayest they do not see,
Yet they save it whole from the beaches and broil the best for thee.
"And now do they press to thy pictures, with open mouth and eye,
And a little gift in the doorway, and the praise no gift can buy:
But—sure they have doubted thy pictures, and that is a grievous stain—
Son that can see so clearly, return them their gifts again." ”

“ Far-spent from out the sea.
The good wife's sons come home again [91]
With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men
In the new and naked lands.
But the faith of men that ha' brothered men
By more than the easy breath,
And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men
In the open books of death.
Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
But poor in the goods o' men,
So what they ha' got by the skin o' their teeth
They sell for their teeth again. ”

“ When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye must not take the seal,
Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves,
And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin and the seal they breed for themselves; [58]
For when the matkas seek the shore to drop their pups aland,
The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroaring, band by band;
And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath,
The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path. ”

“ And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.
(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian law
To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw!)
They had not run a mile from shore—they heard no shots behind—
When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind:
"Bluffed—raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,
You must set a thief to catch a thief—and a thief has caught us all! ”

“ But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did.
The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak,
And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke.
The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free
(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!) ,
The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue,
But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew. ”

“ Never seen death yet, Dickie? Well, now is your time to learn,
And you'll wish you held my record before it comes to your turn.
Not counting the Line and the Foundry, the yards and the village, too,
I've made myself and a million; but I'm damned if I made you.
Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty three—
Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea! ”

“ Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy.
⁠Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul!
⁠Well, ah, fare you well, for the Channel wind's took hold of us,
⁠Choking down our voices as we snatch the gaskets free.
⁠And it's blowing up for night,
⁠And she's dropping light on light,
⁠And she's snorting under bonnets for a breath of open sea.
Wheel, full and by; but she'll smell her road alone to-night. ”

“ Silver and grey ran spit and bay to meet the steel-backed tide,
And pinched and white in the clearing light the crews stared overside.
O rainbow-gay the red pools lay that swilled and spilled and spread,
And gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled between the careless dead—
The dead that rocked so drunkenwise to weather and to lee,
And they saw the work their hands had done as God had bade them see. ”

“ Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
Buy my English posies!—
Here's to match your need.
Buy a tuft of royal heath,
Buy a bunch of weed
White as sand of Muysenberg
Spun before the gale—
Buy my heath and lilies
And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie—
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky—
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain— [102]
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again! ”

“ Him we call Son of the Sea, sullen and swollen;
Panting we waited the death, stealer and stolen,
Yet ere they came to my lance laid for the slaughter,
Lightly she leaped to a log lapped in the water;
Holding on high and apart skins that arrayed her, [19]
Called she the God of the Wind that he should aid her.
Life had the tree at that word, (Praise we the Giver!) ”

“ To vow your vow and watch your arms,
⁠For I will dub you a belted knight.
'For I will give you a horse o' pride,
⁠Wi' blazon and spur and page and squire;
Wi' keep and tail and seizin and law,
⁠And land to hold at your desire.'
True Thomas smiled above his harp,
⁠And turned his face to the naked sky,
Where, blown before the wastrel wind,
⁠The thistle-down she floated by.
'I ha' vowed my vow in another place,
⁠And bitter oath it was on me,
I ha' watched my arms the lee-long night,
⁠Where five-score fighting men would flee. ”

“ A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a warlock Finn was he,
And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's-breadth over the knee.
Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath,
"You'll wait a little, Rube," he said, "the Devil has called for both.
The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close,
And we'll go up to the Wrath of God as the holluschickie goes.
O men, put back your guns again and lay your rifles by,
We've fought our fight, and the best are down. ”

“ I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please;
I'll stand the middle watch up here—alone wi' God an' these
My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain
Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again.
Slam-bang too much—they knock a wee—the crosshead-gibs are loose;
But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse. . . .
Fine, clear an' dark—a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o' sight,
An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night!
His wife's at Plymouth. . . . ”

“ Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.
Make ye sure to each his own
That he reap what he hath sown;
By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord.
Hear now a song—a song of broken interludes—
A song of little cunning; of a singer nothing worth.
Through the naked words and mean
May ye see the truth between
As the singer knew and touched it in the ends of all the Earth!
[3]
The Coastwise Lights.
Our brows are wreathed with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas. ”

“ Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,
Balking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise—certain of sword and pen,
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men! ”

“ By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes;
By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies,
In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets—
An ijjit grinnin' in a dream—for shells an' parrakeets,
An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried—
Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside.
Till, off Sumbawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca'
Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "McAndrews, come awa'!" ”

“ By dawn and dusk and the drinking rain,
⁠And syne my Sendings return to me.
'They come wi' news of the groanin' earth,
⁠They come wi' news o' the roarin' sea,
Wi' word of Spirit and Ghost and Flesh,
⁠And man, that's mazed among the three.'
The King he bit his nether lip,
⁠And smote his hand upon his knee:
'By the faith o' my soul, True Thomas,' he said,
⁠'Ye waste no wit in courtesie!
'As I desire, unto my pride,
⁠Can I make Earls by three and three,
To run before and ride behind
⁠And serve the sons o' my body.' ”

“ And, ere my rocket reached its height,
⁠Had flashed my Love the word of me.
Earth sold her chosen men of strength
⁠ (They lived and strove and died for me)
To drive my road a nation's length,
⁠And toss the miles aside for me. ”

“ The sinner that forswore Thee,
⁠The fool that passed Thee by,
Our times are known before Thee—
⁠Lord, grant us strength to die!
For those who kneel beside us
⁠At altars not Thine own,
Who lack the lights that guide us,
⁠Lord, let their faith atone. ”

“ And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein,
But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin.
There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur,
When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her.
The Baltic called her men and weighed—she could not choose but run—
For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun
(And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and ship
And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip) . ”

“ The worst we stored with utter toil,
⁠The best we left behind!
Coastwise—cross-seas—round the world and back again,
⁠Whither flaw shall fail us or the Trades drive down:
Plain-sail—storm-sail—lay your board and tack again—
⁠And all to bring a cargo up to London Town! ”

“ The cynic devil in his blood
⁠That bids him mock his hurrying soul;
That bids him flout the Law he makes,
⁠That bids him make the Law he flouts,
Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes
⁠The drumming guns that—have no doubts ”

“ Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks—as the steer breaks—from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways. ”

“ As a child to their mother's gown.
When they talk with the stranger bands,
Dazed and newly alone;
When they walk in the stranger lands,
By roaring streets unknown;
Blessing her where she stands
For strength above their own. ”

“ To walk wi' man in fellowship,
⁠And breathe my horse behind the deer.
'My hounds they bay unto the death,
⁠The buck has couched beyond the burn,
My love she waits at her window
⁠To wash my hands when I return. ”