Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1030 page)

Follow the Romany patteran
  West to the sinking sun,
Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift.
  And the east and west are one.

Follow the Romany patteran
  East where the silence broods
By a purple wave on an opal beach
  In the hush of the Mahim woods.

“The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
  The deer to the wholesome wold,
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
  As it was in the days of old.”

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid —
  Light of my tents, be fleet.
Morning waits at the end of the world,
  And the world is all at our feet!

Gipsy Vans

A Madonna of the Trenches
From “Debits and Credits” (1919-1923)
Unless you come of the gipsy stock
  That steals by night and day,
Lock your heart with a double lock
  And throw the key away.
Bury it under the blackest stone
  Beneath your father’s hearth,
And keep your eyes on your lawful own
  And your feet to the proper path.
   
Then you can stand at your door and mock
       When the gipsy vans come through...
     For it isn’t right that the Gorgio stock
       Should live as the Romany do.

Unless you come of the gipsy blood
  That takes and never spares,
Bide content with your given good
  And follow your own affairs.
Plough and harrow and roll your land,
  And sow what ought to be sowed;
But never let loose your heart from your hand,
  Nor flitter it down the road!
   
Then you can thrive on your boughten food
      As the gipsy vans come through...
    For it isn’t nature the Gorgio blood
      Should love as the Romany do.

Unless you carry the gipsy eyes
  That see but seldom weep,
Keep your head from the naked skies
  Or the stars’ll trouble your sleep.
Watch your moon through your window-pane
  And take what weather she brews;
But don’t run out in the midnight rain
  Nor home in the morning dews.
   
Then you can huddle and shut your eyes
      As the gipsy vans come through...
    For it isn’t fitting the Gorgio ryes
      Should walk as the Romany do.

Unless you come of the gipsy race
  That counts all time the same,
Be you careful of Time and Place
  And Judgment and Good Name:
Lose your life for to live your life
  The way that you ought to do;
And when you are finished, your God and your wife
  And the Gipsies’ll laugh at you!
   
Then you can rot in your burying place
      As the gipsy vans come through...
    For it isn’t reason the Gorgio race
      Should die as the Romany do.

The Glories

1925
IN FAITHS and Food and Books and Friends
   Give every soul her choice.
For such as follow divers ends
   In divers lights rejoice.

There is a glory of the Sun
   (‘Pity it passeth soon!)
But those whose work is nearer done
   Look, rather, towards the Moon.

There is a glory of the Moon
   When the hot hours have run;
But such as have not touched their noon
   Give worship to the Sun.

There is a glory of the Stars,
   Perfect on stilly ways;
But such as follow present wars
   Pursue the Comet’s blaze.

There is a glory in all things;
   But each must find his own,
Sufficient for his reckonings,
   Which is to him alone.

The Glory of the Garden

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all ;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.         

And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and ‘prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are  planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing: — ”Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives

There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick,
There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

1919
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed.
They
never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said:
“Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:
“The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:
“If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

             *   *   *   *   *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire —
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The Grave of the Hundred Head

There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
  Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
  A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
  Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
  Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
  Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
  And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
  Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
  Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
  As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
  A blanket over his face —
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
  The men of an alien race —
They made a
samadh
in his honor,
  A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
  They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
  Should go to his God in state,
With fifty file of Burmans
  To open him Heaven’s gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
  Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
  The village of Pabengmay —
A
jingal
covered the clearing,
  Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
  Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
  Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
  With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
  Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning
jingal
  On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar’s flanking-party
  Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
  Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
  Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shickaris
  Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
  Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village —
  The village of Pabengmay,
And the
“drip-drip-drip”
from the baskets
  Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
  High as a tall man’s chin,
Head upon head distorted,
  Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
  Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
  Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
  The head of his son below —
With the sword and the peacock-banner
  That the world might behold and know.

Thus the
samadh
was perfect,
  Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris —
  The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
  Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
  A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
  And Sniders squibbed no more;
    For the Burmans said
    That a white man’s head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.

There’s a widow in sleepy Chester
  Who weeps for her only son;
There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,
  A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri
  Who tells how the work was done.

Great-Heart

Theodore Roosevelt
“The interpreter then called for a man-servant of his, one Great-Heart.” — Bunyan’s’ Pilgrim’s Progess.
Concerning brave Captains
  Our age hath made known
For all men to honour,
  One standeth alone,
Of whom, o’er both oceans,
  Both peoples may say:
“Our realm is diminished
  With Great-Heart away.”

In purpose unsparing,
  In action no less,
The labours he praised
  He would seek and profess
Through travail and battle,
  At hazard and pain.  .  .  .
And our world is none the braver
  Since Great-Heart was ta’en!