Rudyard Kipling

“ If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind, Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind; Be handy and civil, and then you will find That it's beer for the young British soldier. Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . . Now, if you must marry, take care she is old — A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told, For beauty won't help if your rations is cold, Nor love ain't enough for a soldier. 'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . . If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath To shoot when you catch 'em — you'll swing, on my oath! ”

“ Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, And. . .the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!” . . . . . The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell: The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain, But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again: They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark, They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark. ”

“ Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether, But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together. My arm is nothing weak, my strength is not gone by; Sons, I have borne many sons, but my dugs are not dry. Look, I have made ye a place and opened wide the doors, That ye may talk together, your Barons and Councillors — Wards of the Outer March, Lords of the Lower Seas, Ay, talk to your gray mother that bore you on her knees! — That ye may talk together, brother to brother's face — Thus for the good of your peoples — thus for the Pride of the Race. ”

“ She breeds a breed o' rovin' men And casts them over sea. And some are drowned in deep water, And some in sight o' shore, And word goes back to the weary wife And ever she sends more. For since that wife had gate or gear, Or hearth or garth or bield, She willed her sons to the white harvest, And that is a bitter yield. She wills her sons to the wet ploughing, To ride the horse of tree, And syne her sons come back again Far-spent from out the sea. The good wife's sons come home again With little into their hands, But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men In the new and naked lands ”

“ And ofttimes cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade, And tells them tales of His daily toil, of Edens newly made; And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid. To these who are cleansed of base Desire, Sorrow and Lust and Shame — Gods for they knew the hearts of men, men for they stooped to Fame, Borne on the breath that men call Death, my brother's spirit came. He scarce had need to doff his pride or slough the dross of Earth — E'en as he trod that day to God so walked he from his birth, In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth. ”

“ I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain, But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again. Get hence, the hearse is at your door — the grim black stallions wait — They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late! Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed — go back with an open eye, And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one — And. . .the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson! ”

“ 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! ”

“ Death Smote at us in a slaughter-pen, and Kysh Was mute as Yabosh, though the goats were slain; And the Red Horse grazed nightly by the stream, And later, outward, towards the Unlighted Shrine, And those that heard him sickened where they lay. Then said Bisesa to the Priests at dusk, When the white mist rose up breast-high, and choked The voices in the houses of the dead: — “Yabosh and Kysh avail not. If the Horse Reach the Unlighted Shrine we surely die. Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief, Taman!” Here rolled the thunder through the Hills And Yabosh shook upon his pedestal. ”

“ And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair; They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are! ”

“ 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. We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool; We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull ”

“ Our heart's where they rocked our cradle, Our love where we spent our toil, And our faith and our hope and our honour We pledge to our native soil! I charge you charge your glasses — I charge you drink with me To the men of the Four New Nations, And the Islands of the Sea — To the last least lump of coral That none may stand outside, And our own good pride shall teach us To praise our comrade's pride! ”

“ League after league the formless scrub took shape and glided by — League after league the white road swirled behind the white mare's feet — League after league, when leagues were done, we heard the Populzai, Where sure as Time and swift as Death the tireless footfall beat. 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. ”

“ The Chief in War, the Man of Sixty Spears, Howled in his torment, fettered by the Priests, But dared not come to her to drag her forth, And dared not lift his spear against the Priests. Then all men wept. There was a Priest of Kysh Bent with a hundred winters, hairless, blind, And taloned as the great Snow-Eagle is. His seat was nearest to the altar-fires, And he was counted dumb among the Priests. But, whether Kysh decreed, or from Taman The impotent tongue found utterance we know As little as the bats beneath the eaves. ”

“ 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; Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun. Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime, And a new Word runs between: whispering, “Let us be one!” ”

“ When they walk in the stranger lands, By roaring streets unknown; Blessing her where she stands For strength above their own. (On high to hold her fame That stands all fame beyond, By oath to back the same, Most faithful-foolish-fond; Making her mere-breathed name Their bond upon their bond.) So thank I God my birth Fell not in isles aside — Waste headlands of the earth, Or warring tribes untried — But that she lent me worth And gave me right to pride. Surely in toil or fray Under an alien sky, Comfort it is to say: “Of no mean city am I!” ”

“ 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 left 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? You're manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming's sake? ”

“ A SONG OF THE ENGLISH Fair is our lot — O goodly is our heritage! The Coastwise Lights Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees, The Song of the Dead Hear now the Song of the Dead — in the North by the torn berg-edges, The Deep-Sea Cables The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar —, The Song of the Sons One from the ends of the earth — gifts at an open door —, The Song of the Cities Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen, England's Answer Truly ye come of The Blood ”

“ In darkness, and before our Priests, the maid Between the altars cast her bracelets down, Therewith the heavy earrings Armod made, When he was young, out of the water-gold Of Gorukh — threw the breast-plate thick with jade Upon the turquoise anklets — put aside The bands of silver on her brow and neck; And as the trinkets tinkled on the stones, The thunder of Taman lowed like a bull. Then said Bisesa, stretching out her hands, As one in darkness fearing Devils: — “Help! O Priests, I am a woman very weak, And who am I to know the will of Gods? Taman hath called me — whither shall I go?” ”

“ Because his God decreed one clot of blood 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 plantain 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.” ”

“ The Law that ye make shall be law and I do not press my will, Because ye are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still. Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you, After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few. 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! ”

“ Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled — Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled — Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world. They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays, They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of the Elder Days, It is their will to serve or be still as fitteth our Father's praise. ”

“ As Thou didst teach all lovers speech And Life all mystery, So shalt Thou rule by every school Till love and longing die, Who wast or yet the Lights were set, A whisper in the Void, Who shalt be sung through planets young When this is clean destroyed. Beyond the bounds our staring rounds, Across the pressing dark, The children wise of outer skies Look hitherward and mark A light that shifts, a glare that drifts, Rekindling thus and thus, Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne Strange tales to them of us. ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ Afar, I hailed the land at night — The towers I built had heard of me — 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. I snatched their toil to serve my needs — Too slow their fleetest flew for me — I tired twenty smoking steeds, And bade them bait a new for me. I sent the lightnings forth to see Where hour by hour She waited me. Among ten million one was She, And surely all men hated me! ”

“ O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied, And the sirens hoot their dread! When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless viewless deep To the sob of the questing lead! It's down by the Lower Hope, dear lass, With the Gunfleet Sands in view, Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail — the trail that is always new. O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light That holds the hot sky tame, And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powdered floors Where the scared whale flukes in flame! ”

“ For when the matkas seek the shore to drop their pups aland, The great man-seal haul out of the sea, a-roaring, 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. Then dark they lie and stark they lie — rookery, dune, and floe, And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow; And God Who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe, He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the wind along the snow. ”

“ We spake of them all, but the last the most, For I sought a word of a Russian post, Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford. Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes In the fashion of one who is weaving lies. Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say? When the night is gathering all is gray. But we look that the gloom of the night shall die In the morning flush of a blood-red sky. Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise To warn a King of his enemies? We know what Heaven or Hell may bring, But no man knoweth the mind of the King. ”