Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1016 page)

The City of Sleep

(“The Brushwood Boy” —
The Day’s Work
)

Over the edge of the purple down,
  Where the single lamplight gleams,
Know ye the road to the Merciful Town
  That is hard by the Sea of Dreams —
Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,
  And the sick may forget to weep?
But we — pity us! Oh, pity us!
  We wakeful; ah, pity us! —
We must go back with Policeman Day —
  Back from the City of Sleep!

Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,
  Fetter and prayer and plough —
They that go up to the Merciful Town,
  For her gates are closing now.
It is their right in the Baths of Night
  Body and soul to steep,
But we — pity us! ah, pity us!
  We wakeful; ah, pity us! —
We must go back with Policeman Day —
  Back from the City of Sleep!

Over the edge of the purple down,
  Ere the tender  dreams begin,
Look — we may look — at the Merciful Town,
  But we may not enter in!
Outcasts all, from her guarded wall
  Back to our watch we creep:
We — pity us! ah, pity us!
  We wakeful; ah, pity us! —
We that go back with Policeman Day —
  Back from the City of Sleep!

Cleared

(In Memory of a Commission)
Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, oh, listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned — oh, the burning black disgrace! —
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it,
And “coruscating innocence” the learned Judges gave it.

Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon’s knife,
The “honourable gentlemen” deplored the loss of life!
Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burke and shirk and snigger,
No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger!

Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies,
Like phœnixes from Phœnix Park (and what lay there) they rise!
Go shout it to the emerald seas — give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen are cleared — and this is how: —

They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer with counsel’s best advice,
But — sure it keeps their honour white — the learned Court believes
They never give a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.

They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman’s hide,
They never marked a man for death — what fault of theirs he died? —
They only said “intimidate,” and talked and went away —
By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!

Their sin it was that fed the fire — small blame to them that heard —
The boys get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a word —
They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too,
The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they knew!

They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail,
They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clan-na-Gael.
If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down,
They’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.

“Cleared”, honourable gentlemen!  Be thankful it’s no more: —
The widow’s curse is on your house, the dead are at your door.
On you the shame of open shame; on you from North to South
The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.

“Less black than we were painted”? — Faith, no word of black was said;
The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red.
It’s sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff,
And by the Judge’s well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.

Hold up those hands of innocence — go, scare your sheep together,
The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether;
And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen,
Tell them it’s tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!

“The charge is old”? — As old as Cain — as fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments — have ye talked those laws away?
If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot — the curse be on you all!

“Our friends believe”? — Of course they do — as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay?
They! — If their own front door is shut,
  they’ll swear the whole world’s warm;
What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm?

The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane,
The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane,
The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees,
And shows the boys have heard your talk — what do they know of these?

But you — you know — ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead,
Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred,
The mangled stallion’s scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer’s low.
Who set the whisper going first?  You know, and well you know!

My soul!  I’d sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight,
Pure crime I’d done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate,
Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered,
While one of those “not provens” proved me cleared as you are cleared.

Cleared — you that “lost” the League accounts — go, guard our honour still,
Go, help to make our country’s laws that broke God’s law at will —
One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal “strike again”;
The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane.

If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down,
You’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends: —
We are not ruled by murderers, but only — by their friends.

The Clerks and the Bells

Oxford in 1920
THE merry clerks of Oxenford they stretch themselves at ease
Unhelmeted on unbleached sward beneath unshrivelled trees.
For the leaves, the leaves, are on the bough, the bark is on the
bole,
And East and West men’s housen stand all even-roofed and
whole ...
(Men’s housen doored and glazed and floored and whole at every
turn!)
And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:-”Time it is to learn!”

The merry clerks of Oxenford they read and they are told
Of famous men who drew the sword in furious fights of old.
They heark and mark it faithfully, but never clerk will write
What vision rides ‘twixt book and eye from any nearer fight.
(Whose supplication rends the soul? Whose night-long cries
repeat?)
And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:-”Time it is to eat!”

The merry clerks of Oxenford they set them down anon
At tables fair with silver-ware and naperies thereon,
Free to refuse or dainty choose what dish shall seem them good
For they have done with single meats, and waters streaked blood ...
(That three days’ fast is overpast when all those guns said “Nay”!)
And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:-”Time it is to play!”

The merry clerks of Oxenford they hasten one by one
Or band in companies abroad to ride, or row, or run
By waters level with fair meads all goldenly bespread,
Where flash June’s clashing dragon-flies-but no man bows his head,
(Though bullet-wise June’s dragon-flies deride the fearless air!}
And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:-”Time it is for pray!”

The pious clerks of Oxenford they kneel at twilight-tide
For to receive and well believe the Word of Him Who died.
And, though no present wings of Death hawk hungry round
that place,
Their brows are bent upon their hands that none may see their face-
(Who set aside the world and died? What life shall please Him best?)
And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:-”Time it is to rest!”

The merry clerks of Oxenford lie under bolt and bar
Lest they should rake the midnight clouds or chase a sliding star.
In fear of fine and dread rebuke, they round their full-night sleep,
And leave that world which once they took for older men to keep.
(Who walks by dreams what ghostly wood in search of play-
mate slain?)
Until the Bells of Oxenford ring in the light again.

Unburdened breeze, unstricken trees, and all God’s works re-
stored-
In this way live the merry clerks,-the clerks of Oxenford!

The Coastwise Lights

Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered ‘neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry — over headland, ness, and voe —
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.

We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool;
We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull;
To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the sea —
The white wall-sided war-ships or the whalers of Dundee!

Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn!
Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn!
Swift shuttles of an Empire’s loom that weave us, main to main,
The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again!

Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates;
Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights!
Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek,
The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak!

A Code of Morals

  Lest you should think this story true
    I merely mention I
   Evolved it lately. ‘Tis a most
   Unmitigated misstatement.

Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,
And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught
His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.

And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;
So Cupid and Apollo linked ,
per
heliograph, the pair.
At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise —
At e’en, the dying sunset bore her husband’s homilies.

He warned her ‘gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,
As much as ‘gainst the blandishments paternal of the old;
But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)
That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.

‘Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, who tittupped on the way,
When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play.
They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt —
So stopped to take the message down — and this is whay they learnt —

“Dash dot dot, dot, dot dash, dot dash dot” twice. The General swore.
“Was ever General Officer addressed as ‘dear’ before?
“‘My Love,’ i’ faith! ‘My Duck,’ Gadzooks! ‘My darling popsy-wop!’
“Spirit of great Lord Wolseley,
who
is on that mountain top?”

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the gilded Staff were still,
As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;
For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband’s warning ran: —
“Don’t dance or ride with General Bangs — a most immoral man.”

[At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise —
But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]
With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife
Some interesting details of the General’s private life.

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still,
And red and ever redder grew the General’s shaven gill.
And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not): —
“I think we’ve tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!”

All honour unto Bangs, for ne’er did Jones thereafter know
By word or act official who read off that helio.
But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mool
tan
They know the worthy General as “that most immoral man.”

The Coiner