Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1003 page)

There shall be one people — it shall serve one Lord —
       (Neither Priest nor Baron shall escape!)
It shall have one  speech  and  law,  soul  and  strength  and  sword.
      England’s  being  hammered,  hammered,  hammered  into
         shape!

The Appeal

It 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 born in mind,
Seek not to question other than
    The books I leave behind.

Arithmetic on the Frontier

A great and glorious thing it is
  To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
  Ere reckoned fit to face the foe —
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”

Three hundred pounds per annum spent
  On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
  Comprised in “villanous saltpetre!”
And after — ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our ‘ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station —
  A canter down some dark defile —
Two thousand pounds of education
  Drops to a ten-rupee
jezail
—
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote,
  No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
  Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares — shoot straight who can —
The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp
  Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
  Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
  The troopships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
  To slay Afridis where they run.
The “captives of our bow and spear”
Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.

Army Headquarters

  Old is the song that I sing —
    Old as my unpaid bills —
  Old as the chicken that
khitmutgars
bring
    Men at dak-bungalows — old as the Hills. 

AHASUERUS JENKINS of the “Operatic Own,”
Was dowered with a tenor voice of
super-
Santley tone.
His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer.
He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.

He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day;
He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way;
His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,
But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.

He took two months at Simla when the year was at the spring,
And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.
He warbled like a
bul-bul
but particularly at
Cornelia Agrippina, who was musical and fat.

She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a Dept.
Where Cornelia Agrippina’s human singing-birds were kept
From April to October on a plump retaining-fee,
Supplied, of course,
per mensem,
by the Indian Treasury.

Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;
He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they;
So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,
Cornelia told her husband: — “Tom, you mustn’t send him down.”

They haled him from his regiment, which didn’t much regret him;
They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him
To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day,
And draw his plump retaining-fee — which means his double pay.

Now, ever after dinner, when the coffee-cups are brought,
Ahasuerus waileth o’er the grand pianoforte;
And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,
And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a Power in the State!

Arterial

Early Chinese
 — The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)

                           I

Frost upon small rain — the ebony-lacquered avenue
   Reflecting lamps as a pool shows goldfish.
The sight suddenly emptied out of the young man’s eyes
   Entering upon it sideways.

                           II

In youth, by hazard, I killed an old man.
         In age I maimed a little child.
Dead leaves under foot reproach not:
But the lop-sided cherry-branch — whenever the sun rises,
         How black a shadow!

As the Bell Clinks

As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.
That was all — the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.
Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.

For my misty meditation, at the second changing-station,
Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar
Of a Wagner
obbligato, scherzo,
doublehand
staccato,
Played on either pony’s saddle by the clacking tonga-bar —
Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.

“She was sweet,” thought I, “last season, but ‘twere surely wild unreason
Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star,
When she whispered, something sadly: ‘I — we feel your going badly!’”
“And you let the chance escape you?”
rapped the rattling tonga-bar.
“What a chance and what an idiot!”
clicked the vicious tonga-bar.

Heart of man — O heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,
On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had ‘scaped that fatal car.
But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by,
To
“You call on Her to-morrow!”
— no fugue with cymbals by the bar —
You must call on Her to-morrow!”
— post-horn gallop by the bar.

Yet a further stage my goal on — we were whirling down to Solon,
With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost,
ganz und gar
—
“She was
very
sweet,” I hinted. “If a kiss had been imprinted?” —
“‘Would ha’ saved a world of trouble!”
clashed the busy tonga-bar.
“‘Been accepted or rejected!”
banged and clanged the tonga-bar.

Then a notion wild and daring, ‘spite the income tax’s paring,
And a hasty thought of sharing — less than many incomes are,
Made me put a question private, you can guess what I would drive at.
“You must work the sum to prove it,”
clanked the careless tonga-bar.
“Simple Rule of Two will prove it,”
lilted back the tonga-bar.

It was under Khyraghaut I mused. “Suppose the maid be haughty —
There are lovers rich — and forty — wait some wealthy Avatar?
Answer, monitor untiring, ‘twixt the ponies twain perspiring!”
“Faint heart never won fair lady,”
creaked the straining tonga-bar.
“Can I tell you ere you ask Her?”
pounded slow the tonga-bar.

Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burning,
Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far.
As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it tingled —
Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar —
Try your luck — you can’t do better!”
twanged the loosened tongar-bar

An Astrologer’s Song

To the Heavens above us
O look and behold
The Planets that love us
All harnessed in gold!
What chariots, what horses
Against us shall bide
While the Stars in their courses
Do fight on our side?

All thought, all desires,
That are under the sun,
Are one with their fires,
As we also are one:
All matter, all spirit,
All fashion, all frame,
Receive and inherit
Their strength from the same.

Oh, man that deniest
All power save thine own,
Their power in the highest
Is mightily shown.
Not less in the lowest
That power is made clear.
(Oh, man, if thou knowest,
What treasure is here!)

Earth quakes in her throes
And we wonder for why!
But the blind planet knows
When her ruler is nigh;
And, attuned since Creation
To perfect accord,
She thrills in her station
And yearns to her Lord.

The waters have risen,
The springs are unbound —
The floods break their prison,
And ravin around.
No rampart withstands ‘em,
Their fury will last,
Till the Sign that commands ‘em
Sinks low or swings past.

Through abysses unproven
O’er gulfs beyond thought,
Our portion is woven,
Our burden is brought.
Yet They that prepare it,
Whose Nature we share,
Make us who must bear it
Well able to bear.

Though terrors o’ertake us
We’ll not be afraid.
No Power can unmake us
Save that which has made:
Nor yet beyond reason
Or hope shall we fall —
All things have their season,
And Mercy crowns all!

Then, doubt not, ye fearful —
The Eternal is King —
Up, heart, and be cheerful,
And lustily sing: —
What chariots, what horses
Against us shall bide
While the Stars in their courses
Do fight on our side?

At His Execution

“The Manner of Men”
St. Paul
From “Limits and Renewals” (1932)
I am made all things to all men —
    Hebrew, Roman, and Greek —
    In each one’s tongue I speal,
Suiting to each my word,
That some may be drawn to the Lord!

I am made all things to all men —
    In City or Wilderness
    Praising the crafts they profess
That some may be drawn to the Lord —
By any means to my Lord!

Since I was overcome
    By that great Light and Word,
    I have forgot or forgone
The self men call their own
(Being made all things to all men)
    So that I might save some
    At such small price, to the Lord,
As being all things to all men.

I was made all things to all men,
But now my course is done —
And now is my reward...
Ah, Christ, when I stand at Thy Throne
With those I have drawn to the Lord,
 Restore me my self again!

Azrael’s Count

“Uncovenanted Mercies”
From “Limits and Renewals” (1930)

Lo! The Wild Cow of the Desert, her yeanling estrayed from her —
Lost in the wind-plaited sand-dunes — athirst in the maze of them.
Hot-foot she  follows those  foot-prints — the  thrice-tangled ways of them.
Her soul is shut save to one thing — the love-quest consuming her
Fearless she lows past the camp, our fires affright her not.
Ranges she close to the tethered  ones — the  mares by  the lances held.
Noses she softly apart the veil in the women’s tent.
Next — withdrawn under moonlight, a shadow afar off —
Fades. Ere men cry, “Hold her fast! darkness recovers her.
She the all-crazed and forlorn, when the dogs threaten her,
Only a side-tossed horn, as though a fly troubled her,
Shows she hath heard, till a lance in the heart of her quivereth.
— Lo, from that carcass aheap — where speeds the soul of it?
Where is the tryst it must keep? Who is her pandar? Death!

Men I dismiss to the Mercy greet me not willingly;
Crying, “When seekest Thou
me
first?  Are not my kin unslain?
Shrinking aside from the Sword-edge, blinking the glare of it,
Sinking the chin in the neck-bone. How shall that profit them?
Yet, among men a ten thousand, few meet me otherwise.

Yet, among women a thousand, one comes to me mistress-wise.
Arms open, breasts open, mouth open — hot is her need on her.
Crying, “Ho, Servant, acquit me, the bound by Love’s promises!
Haste Thou! He Waits! I would go! Handle me lustily!”
Lo! her eyes stare past my wings, as things unbeheld by her.
Lo! her lips summoning part.
I
am not whom she calls!

Lo! My sword sinks and returns. At no time she heedeth it,
More than the dust of a journey, her garments brushed clear of it.
Lo! Ere the blood-gush has ceased, forward her soul rushes.
She is away to her tryst. Who is her pandar? Death!

Back To the Army Again

I’m ‘ere in a ticky ulster an’ a broken billycock ‘at,
A-layin’ on the sergeant I don’t know a gun from a bat;
My shirt’s doin’ duty for jacket, my sock’s stickin’ out o’ my boots,
An’ I’m learnin’ the damned old goose-step along o’ the new recruits!