Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1008 page)

“What are ye doing, O Flesh and Blood,
  And what’s your foolish will,
That you must break into Minepit Wood
  And wake the Folk of the Hill?”

“Oh, we’ve broke into Lord Pelham’s park,
  And killed Lord Pelham’s deer,
And if ever you heard a little dog bark
  You’ll know why we come here.

“We ask you let us go our way,
  As fast as we can flee,
For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay
  You’ll know how pressed we be.”

“Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank
  And drop the knives from your hand,
And though the hounds be at your flank
  I’ll save you where you stand!”

They laid their crossbows on the bank,
  They threw their knives in the wood,
And the ground before them opened and sank
  And saved ‘em where they stood.

“Oh, what’s the roaring in our ears
   That strikes us well-nigh dumb?”
“Oh, that is just how things appears
   According as they come.”

“What are the stars before our eyes
   That strike us well-nigh blind?”
“Oh, that is just how things arise
   According as you find.”

“And why’s our bed so hard to the bones
   Excepting where it’s cold?”
“Oh, that’s because it is precious stones
   Excepting where ‘tis gold.

“Think it over as you stand,
   For I tell you without fail,
 If you haven’t got into Fairyland
   You’re not in Lewes Gaol.”

All night long they thought of it,
  And, come the dawn, they saw
They’d tumbled into a great old pit,
  At the bottom of Minepit Shaw.

And the keeper’s hound had followed ‘em close,
  And broke her neck in the fall;
So they picked up their knives and their crossbows
  And buried the dog. That’s all.

But whether the man was a poacher too
  Or a Pharisee’ so bold —
I reckon there’s more things told than are true.
  And more things true than are told!

The Ballad of the Red Earl

1891

(It is not for them to criticize too minutely
the methods the Irish followed, though they might deplore some of
their results. During the past few years Ireland had been going
through what was tantamount to a revolution. — EARL SPENCER)
Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
  The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
  On a desert of drifting words?

Ye have followed a man for a God, Red Earl,
  As the Lord o’ Wrong and Right;
But the day is done with the setting sun
  Will ye follow into the night?

He gave you your own old words, Red Earl,
  For food on the wastrel way;
Will ye rise and eat in the night, Red Earl,
  That fed so full in the day?

Ye have followed fast, ye have followed far,
  And where did the wandering lead?
From the day that ye praised the spoken word
  To the day ye must gloss the deed.

And as ye have given your hand for gain,
  So must ye give in loss;
And as ye ha’ come to the brink of the pit,
  So must ye loup across.

For some be rogues in grain, Red Earl,
  And some be rogues in fact,
And rogues direct and rogues elect;
  But all be rogues in pact.

Ye have cast your lot with these, Red Earl;
  Take heed to where ye stand.
Ye have tied a knot with your tongue, Red Earl,
  That ye cannot loose with your hand.

Ye have travelled fast, ye have travelled far,
  In the grip of a tightening tether,
Till ye find at the end ye must take for friend
  The quick and their dead together.

Ye have played with the Law between your lips,
  And mouthed it daintilee;
But the gist o’ the speech is ill to teach,
  For ye say: “Let wrong go free.”

Red Earl, ye wear the Garter fair,
  And gat your place from a King:
Do ye make Rebellion of no account,
  And Treason a little thing?

And have ye weighed your words, Red Earl,
  That stand and speak so high?
And is it good that the guilt o’ blood,
  Be cleared at the cost of a sigh?

And is it well for the sake of peace,
  Our tattered Honour to sell,
And higgle anew with a tainted crew —
  Red Earl, and is it well?

Ye have followed fast, ye have followed far,
  On a dark and doubtful way,
  And the road is hard, is hard, Red Earl,
    And the price is yet to pay.

Ye shall pay that price as ye reap reward
  For the toil of your tongue and pen —
In the praise of the blamed and the thanks of the shamed,
  And the honour o’ knavish men.

They scarce shall veil their scorn, Red Earl,
  And the worst at the last shall be,
When you tell your heart that it does not know
  And your eye that it does not see.

Banquet Night

“ONCE in so often,” King Solomon said,
 Watching his quarrymen drill the stone,
“We will club our garlic and wine and bread
 And banquet together beneath my Throne,
And all the Brethren shall come to that mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.”

“Send a swift shallop to Hiram of Tyre,
 Felling and floating our beautiful trees,
Say that the Brethren and I desire
 Talk with our Brethren who use the seas.
And we shall be happy to meet them at mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.”

“Carry this message to Hiram Abif-
 Excellent master of forge and mine :-
I and the Brethren would like it if
 He and the Brethren will come to dine
(Garments from Bozrah or morning-dress)
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.”

“God gave the Hyssop and Cedar their place-
 Also the Bramble, the Fig and the Thorn-
But that is no reason to black a man’s face
 Because he is not what he hasn’t been born.
And, as touching the Temple, I hold and profess
We are Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.”

So it was ordered and so it was done,
 And the hewers of wood and the Masons of Mark,
With foc’sle hands of Sidon run
 And Navy Lords from the
Royal Ark
,
Came and sat down and were merry at mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.

The Quarries are hotter than Hiram’s forge,
 No one is safe from the dog-whip’s reach.
It’s mostly snowing up Lebanon gorge,
 And it’s always blowing off Joppa beach;

But once in so often, the messenger brings
Solomon’s mandate : “Forget these things!
Brother to Beggars and Fellow to Kings,
Companion of Princes-forget these things!
Fellow-Craftsmen, forget these things!”

Beast and Man in India

Written for John Lockwood Kipling’s
They  killed a Child to please the Gods
In Earth’s young penitence,
And I have bled in that Babe’s stead
Because of innocence.

I bear the sins of sinful men
That have no sin of my own,
They drive me forth to Heaven’s wrath
Unpastured and alone.

I am the meat of sacrifice,
The ransom of man’s guilt,
For they give my life to the altar-knife
Wherever shrine is built.
                              
The Goat.

Between the waving tufts of jungle-grass,
Up from the river as the twilight falls,
Across the dust-beclouded plain they pass
On to the village walls.

Great is the sword and mighty is the pen,
But over all the labouring ploughman’s blade —
For on its oxen and its husbandmen
An Empire’s strength is laid.
                           
The Oxen.

The torn boughs trailing o’er the tusks aslant,
The saplings reeling in the path he trod,
Declare his might — our lord the Elephant,
Chief of the ways of God.

The black bulk heaving where the oxen pant,
The bowed head toiling where the guns careen,
Declare our might — our slave the Elephant,
And servant of the Queen.
                           
The Elephant.

Dark children of the mere and marsh,
Wallow and waste and lea,
Outcaste they wait at the village gate
With folk of low degree.

Their pasture is in no man’s land,
Their food the cattle’s scorn;
Their rest is mire and their desire
The thicket and the thorn.

But woe to those that break their sleep,
And woe to those that dare
To rouse the herd-bull from his keep,
The wild boar from his lair!
                                 
Pigs and Buffaloes.

The beasts are very wise,
Their mouths are clean of lies,
They talk one to the other,
Bullock to bullock’s brother
Resting after their labours,
Each in stall with his neighbours.
But man with goad and whip,
Breaks up their fellowship,
Shouts in their silky ears
Filling their soul with fears.
When he has ploughed the land,
He says:  “They understand.”
But the beasts in stall together,
Freed from the yoke and tether,
Say as the torn flanks smoke:
“Nay, ‘twas the whip that spoke.”

The Bee-Boy’s Song

“ ‘Dymchurch Flit’ “ — Puck of Pook’s Hill.

Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
“Hide from your neigbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to
us
you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!”

    A maiden in her glory,
        Upon her wedding - day,
    Must tell her Bees the story,
       Or else they’ll fly away.
      Fly away — die away —
    Dwindle down and leave you!
      But if you don’t deceive your Bees,
     Your Bees will not deceive you.

     Marriage, birth or buryin’,
         News across the seas,
     All you’re sad or merry in,
         You must tell the Bees.
       Tell ‘em coming in an’ out,
       Where the Fanners fan,
       ‘Cause the Bees are just about
        As curious as a man!

     Don’t you wait where the trees are,
    When the lightnings play,
    Nor don’t you hate where Bees are,
    Or else they’ll pine away.
          Pine away — dwine away —
         Anything to leave you!
          But if you never grieve your Bees,
         Your Bees’ll never grieve you.

The Bees and the Flies

“The Mother Hive” — Actions and Reactions
A Farmer of the Augustan Age
Perused in Virgil’s golden page
The story of the secret won
From Proteus by Cyrene’s son —
How the dank sea-god showed the swain
Means to restore his hives again.
More briefly, how a slaughtered bull
Breeds honey by the bellyful.

The egregious rustic put to death
A bull by stopping of its breath,
Disposed the carcass in a shed
With fragrant herbs and branches spread,
And, having well performed the charm,
Sat down to wait the promised swarm.

Nor waited long. The God of Day
Impartial, quickening with his ray
Evil and good alike, beheld
The carcass — and the carcass swelled.
Big with new birth the belly heaves
Beneath its screen of scented leaves.
Past any doubt, the bull conceives!

The farmer bids men bring more hives
To house the profit that arrives;
Prepares on pan and key and kettle,
Sweet music that shall make ‘em settle;
But when to crown the work he goes,
Gods! What a stink salutes his nose!

Where are the honest toilers? Where
The gravid mistress of their care?
 A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
 But not a sign or sound of bees.
 Worms of the riper grave unhid
 By any kindly coffin-lid,
 Obscene and shameless to the light,
 Seethe in insatiate appetite,
 Through putrid offal, while above
 The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
 Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
 Consume corruption twice corrupt.

Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm

1903

Before a midnight breaks in storm,
  Or herded sea in wrath,
Ye know what wavering gusts inform
  The greater tempest’s path;
    Till the loosed wind
    Drive all from mind,
Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry,
O’ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.

Ere rivers league against the land
  In piratry of flood,
Ye know what waters steal and stand
  Where seldom water stood.
   Yet who will note,
   Till fields afloat,
And washen carcass and the returning well,
Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?