Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1018 page)

The tale is as old as the Eden Tree — and new as the new-cut tooth —
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane:  “You did it, but was it Art?”

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old:  “It’s clever, but is it Art?”

When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room’s green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould —
They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,
For the Devil mutters behind the leaves:  “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,
And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,
By the favour of God we might know as much — as our father Adam knew!

A Counting-Out Song

“An English School”
From “Land and Sea Tales” (1919-1923)
What is the song the children sing,
When doorway lilacs bloom in Spring,
And the Schools are loosed, and the games are played
That were deadly earnest when Earth was made?
Hear them chattering, shrill and hard,
After dinner-time, out in the yard,
As the sides are chosen and all submit
To the chance of the lot that shall make them “It.”
    (Singing)
“Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
                   Catch a nigger by the toe!
                   (If he hollers let him go!
                   Eenee, Meenee. Mainee, Mo!
                        You-are-It!”

Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, and Mo
Were the First Big Four of the Long Ago,
When the Pole of the Earth sloped thirty degrees,
And Central Europe began to freeze,
And they needed Ambassadors staunch and stark
To steady the Tribes in the gathering dark:
But the frost was fierce and flesh was frail,
So they launched a Magic that could not fail.
    (Singing)
“Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
                    Hear the wolves across the snow!
                    Some one has to kill ‘em — so
                    Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
                         Make — you — It!”

Slowly the Glacial Epoch passed,
Central Europe thawed out at last;
And, under the slush of the melting snows
The first dim shapes of the Nations rose.
Rome, Britannia, Belgium, Gaul —
Flood and avalanche fathered them all;
And the First Big Four, as they watched the mess,
Pitied Man in his helplessness.
    (Singing)
“Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
                    Trouble starts When Nations grow,
                    Some one has to stop it — so
                    Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
                          Make-you-It!”

Thus it happened, but none can tell
What was the Power behind the spell —
Fear, or Duty, or Pride, or Faith —
That sent men shuddering out to death —
To cold and watching, and, worse than these,
Work, more work, when they looked for ease —
To the days discomfort, the nights despair,
In the hope of a prize that they never could share,
    (Singing)
“Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
                    Man is born to Toil and Woe.
                    One will cure another — so
                    Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
                          Make — you — It!”

Once and again, as the Ice went North
The grass crept up to the Firth of Forth.
Once and again, as the Ice came South
The glaciers ground over Lossiemouth.
But, grass or glacier, cold or hot,
The men went out who would rather not,
And fought with the Tiger, the Pig and the Ape,
To hammer the world into decent shape.
     (Singing)
“Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
                    What’s the use of doing so?
                    Ask the Gods, for we don’t know;
                    But Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
                              Make-us-It!”

Nothing is left of that terrible rune
But a tag of gibberish tacked to a tune
That ends the waiting and settles the claims
Of children arguing over their games;
For never yet has a boy been found
To shirk his turn when the turn came round;
Nor even a girl has been known to say
“If you laugh at me I shan’t play.”
   For —    
“Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo,
                (Don’t you let the grown-ups know! )
                You may hate it ever so,
                But if you’re chose you’re bound to go,
                When Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
                         Make-you-It!”

Covenent

                     1914

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
  Others might fall, not we, for we were wise —
Merchants in freedom.   So, of our free-will
  We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
   On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
  Neither God’s judgment nor man’s heart was turned.

Yet there remains His Mercy — to be sought
  Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
  When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause.   God help us, and make strong
  Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!

Cruisers

1899
As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine,
Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line;
So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire,
Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire.

Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure,
Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure;
Since half of our trade is that same pretty sort
As mettlesome wenches do practise in port.

For this is our office — to spy and make room,
As hiding yet guiding the foe to their doom;
Surrounding, confounding, we bait and betray
And tempt them to battle the seas’ width away.

The pot-bellied merchant foreboding no wrong
With headlight and sidelight he lieth along,
Till, lightless and lightfoot and lurking, leap we
To force him discover his business by sea.

And when we have wakened the lust of a foe,
To draw him by flight toward our bullies we go,
Till, ‘ware of strange smoke stealing nearer, he flies
Ere our bullies close in for to make him good prize.

So, when we have spied on the path of their host,
One flieth to carry that word to the coast;
And, lest by false doublings they turn and go free,
One lieth behind them to follow and see.

Anon we return, being gathered again,
Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain —
Across the grey ridges all crisped and curled —
To join the long dance round the curve of the world.

The bitter salt spindrift, the sun-glare likewise,
The moon-track a-tremble, bewilders our eyes,
Where, linking and lifting, our sisters we hail
‘Twixt wrench of cross-surges or plunge of head-gale.

As maidens awaiting the bride to come forth
Make play with light jestings and wit of no worth,
So, widdershins circling the bride-bed of death,
Each fleereth her neighbour and signeth and saith: —

“What see ye? Their signals, or levin afar?
“What hear ye? God’s thunder, or guns of our war?
“What mark ye? Their smoke, or the cloud-rack outblown?
“What chase ye? Their lights, or the Daystar low down?”

So, times past all number deceived by false shows,
Deceiving we cumber the road of our foes,
For this is our virtue: to track and betray;
Preparing great battles a sea’s width away.

Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart,
For the laws are clean gone that restrained our art;
Up and down the near headlands and against the far wind
We are loosed (O be swift!) to the work of our kind!

Cuckoo Song

(Spring begins in southern England on the 14th April, on which date the Old Woman lets the Cuckoo out of her basket at Heathfield Fair — locally known as Heffle Cuckoo Fair.)
Tell it to the locked-up trees,
Cuckoo, bring your song here!
Warrant, Act and Summons, please,
For Spring to pass along here!
Tell old Winter, if he doubt,
Tell him squat and square — a!
Old Woman!
Old Woman!
Old Woman’s let the Cuckoo out
At Heffle Cuckoo Fair — a!

March has searched and April tried —
‘Tisn’t long to May now.
Not so far to Whitsuntide
And Cuckoo’s come to stay now!
Hear the valiant fellow shout
Down the orchard bare — a!
Old Woman!
Old Woman!
Old Woman’s let the Cuckoo out
At Heffle Cuckoo Fair — a!

When your heart is young and gay
And the season rules it —
Work your works and play your play
‘Fore the Autumn cools it!
Kiss you turn and turn-about,
But, my lad, beware — a!
Old Woman!
Old Woman!
Old Woman’s let the Cuckoo out
At Heffle Cuckoo Fair — a!

The Cure

“The Miracle of Saint Jubanus”
From “Limits and Renewals” (1939)
Long years ago, ere R — lls or R — ce
  Trebled the mileage man could cover;
When Sh — nks’s Mare was H — bs — n’s Choice,
  And Bl — r — ot had not flown to Dover:
When good hoteliers looked askance
  If any power save horse-flesh drew vans —
‘Time was in easy, hand-made France,
  I met the Cure of Saint Juvans.

He was no babbler, but, at last,
  One learned from things he left unspoken
How in some fiery, far-off past,
  His, and a woman’s, heart were broken.
He sought for death, but found it not,
  Yet, seeking, found his true vocation,
And fifty years, by all forgot,
  Toiled at a simple folk’s salvation.

His pay was lower than our Dole;
  The piteous little church he tended
Had neither roof nor vestments whole
  Save what his own hard fingers mended:
While, any hour, at every need
  (As Conscience or La Grippe assailed ‘em),
His parish bade him come with speed,
  And, foot or cart, he never failed ‘em,

His speech — to suit his hearers — ran
  From pure Parisian to gross peasant,
With interludes North African
  If any Legionnaire were present:
And when some wine-ripe atheist mocked
  His office or the Faith he knelt in,
He left the sinner dumb and shocked
  By oaths his old Battalion dealt in.

And he was learned in Death and Life;
  And he was Logic’s self (as France is).
He knew his flock-man, maid, and wife —
  Their forebears, failings, and finances.
Spite, Avarice, Devotion, Lies —
  Passion ablaze or sick Obsession —
He dealt with each physician-wise;
  Stern or most tender, at Confession...

To-day? God knows where he may lie —
  His Cross of weathered beads above him:
But one not worthy to untie
  His shoe-string, prays you read — and love him!

Dane-Geld

A.D. 980-1016
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
  To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
“We invaded you last night — we are quite prepared to fight,
  Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
  And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ‘em the Dane-geld
  And then  you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
  To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
  We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we’ve  proved it again and  again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
  For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
  You will find it better policy to say: —

“We never pay
any
-one Dane-geld,
  No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
  And the nation that pays it is lost!”

Danny Deever