Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1058 page)

Philadelphia

             
“Brother Square-Toes” — Rewards and Fairies.

If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,
  You mustn’t take my stories for a guide.
There’s little left, indeed, of the city you will read of,
  And all the folk I write about have died.
Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
  Or remember what his cunning and his skill did;
And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinzendorf,
  Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded.

    It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis,
    (Never say I didn’t give you warning).
    In Seventeen Ninety-three ‘twas there for all to see,
    But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.

If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,
  You mustn’t go by anything I’ve said.
Bob Bicknell’s Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages,
  But the Limited will take you there instead.
Toby Hirte can’t be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen
  North Second Street — no matter when you call;
And I fear you’ll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane
  Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball.

    It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden,
   (Never say I didn’t give you warning).
    In Seventeen Ninety-four ‘twas a famous dancing floor —
     But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.

If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,
  You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.
You needn’t try your luck at Epply’s or “The Buck,”
  Though the Father of his Country liked them well.
It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,
  Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed — so
You must treat as out of date the story I relate
   Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.

      He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther
      (Never say I didn’t give you warning)
      In Seventeen Ninety-five  he was, ( rest his soul! )  alive.
      But he’s not in Philadelphia this morning.

 If you’re off to Philadelphia this morning,
   And wish to prove the truth of what I say,
 I pledge my word you’ll find the pleasant land behind
   Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.
 Still  the  pine-woods  scent  the  noon;  still  the  catbird  sings  his
          tune;
   Still autumn sets the maple-forest blazing;
 Still the  grape-vine through the  dusk  flings  her  soul-compelling
           musk;
   Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing!
   They are there, there, there with Earth immortal
   ( Citizens, I give you friendly warning ).                    .
   The thins that truly last when men and times have passed,
   They are all in Pennsylvania this morning!

A Pict Song

“The Winged Hats” — Puck of Pook’s Hill

Rome never looks where she treads.
  Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
  And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on — that is all,
   And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
   With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk — we!
   Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
   How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
  We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
   We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe  killing  an  oak —
  Rats gnawing cables in two —
Moths making holes in a cloak —
  How they must love what they do!
Yes — and we Little Folk too,
  We are busy as they —
Working our works out of view —
  Watch, and you’ll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
  But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along
  To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
  Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you — you will die of the shame,
  And then we shall dance on your graves!

    
We are the Little Folk, we, etc.

A Pilgrim’s Way

I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way
Or male and female devilkins to lead my feet astray.
If these are added I rejoice - if not, I shall not mind
So long as I have leave and choice to meet my fellow-kind.
  For as we come and as we go (and deadly soon go we!)
  The people, lord, Thy people, are good enough for me.

Thus I will honour pious men whose virtue shines so bright
(Though none are more amazed than I when I by chance do right)
And I will pity foolish men for woe their sins have bred
(Though ninety-nine percent of mine I brought on my own head)
  And Amorite or Eremite or General Averagee
  The people, Lord, Thy people are good enough for me

And when the bore me overmuch, I will not shake mine ears
Recalling many thousand such whom I have bored to tears
And when they labour to impress I will not doubt nor scoff
Since I myself have done no less and sometimes pulled it off
  Yea as we are and we are not and we pretend to be
  The people, lord, Thy people, are good enough for me.

And when they work me random wrong as oftentimes hath been
I will not cherish hate too long (my hands are none too clean)
And when they do me random good I will not feign surprise
No more than those whom I have cheered with wayside courtesies
  But as we give and as we take - whate’er our takings be)
  The people, lord, Thy people, are good enough for me.

But when I meet with frantic folk who sinfully declare
There is no pardon for their sin, the same I will not spare
Till I have proved that Heaven and Hell which in our hearts we have
Show nothing irredeemable on either side the grave
  For as we live and as we die - if utter Death there be
  The people, lord, Thy people, are good enough for me.

Deliver me from every pride - the Middle, High and Low
That bars me from a brother’s side, whatever pride he show
And purge me from all heresies of thought and speech and pen
That bid me judge him otherwise than I am judged.  Amen
That I might sing of Crowd or King or road-borne company
That I may labour in my day, vocation and degree
To provr the same by deed and name, and hold unshakenly
(Where’er I go, whate’er I know, whoe’er my neighbour be)
  This single faith in Life and Death and to Eternity
  “ The people, lord, Thy people, are good enough for me.”

Pink Dominoes

  They are fools who kiss and tell” —
    Wisely has the poet sung.
  Man may hold all sorts of posts
    If he’ll only hold his tongue.

Jenny and Me were engaged, you see,
  On the eve of the Fancy Ball;
So a kiss or two was nothing to you
  Or any one else at all.

Menny would go in a domino —
  Pretty and pink but warm;
While I attended, clad in a splendid
  Austrian uniform.

Now we had arranged, through notes exchanged
  Early that afternoon,
At Number Four to waltz no more,
  But to sit in the dusk and spoon.

I wish you to see that Jenny and Me
  Had barely exchanged our troth;
So a kiss or two was strictly due
  By, from, and between us both.

When Three was over, an eager lover,
  I fled to the gloom outside;
And a Domino came out also
  Whom I took for my future bride.

That is to say, in a casual way,
  I slipped my arm around her;
With a kiss or two (which is nothing to you),
  And ready to kiss I found her.

She turned her head and the name she said
  Was certainly not my own;
But ere I could speak, with a smothered shriek
  She fled and left me alone.

Then Jenny came, and I saw with shame
  She’d doffed her domino;
And I had embraced an alien waist —
  But I did not tell her so.

Next morn I knew that there were two
  Dominoes pink, and one
Had cloaked the spouse of Sir Julian Vouse,
  Our big Political gun.

Sir J. was old, and her hair was gold,
  And her eye was a blue cerulean;
And the name she said when she turned her head
  Was not in the least like “Julian.”

The Pirates in England

Saxon Invasion, A.D. 400-600
    When Rome was rotten-ripe to her fall,
      And the sceptre passed from her hand,
    The pestilent Picts leaped over the wall
      To harry the English land.

    The little dark men of the mountain and waste,
      So quick to laughter and tears,
    They came panting with hate and haste
      For the loot of five hundred years.

    They killed the trader, they sacked the shops,
      They ruined temple and town —
    They swept like wolves through the standing crops
      Crying that Rome was down.

    They wiped out all that they could find
      Of beauty and strength and worth,
    But they could not wipe out the Viking’s Wind
      That brings the ships from the North.

    They could not wipe out the North-East gales
      Nor what those gales set free —
    The pirate ships with their close-reefed sails,
      Leaping from sea to sea.

    They had forgotten the shield-hung hull
      Seen nearer and more plain,
    Dipping into the troughs like a gull,
      And gull-like rising again —

    The painted eyes that glare and frown
      In the high snake-headed stem,
    Searching the beach while her sail comes down,
      They had forgotten them!

    There was no Count of the Saxon Shore
      To meet her hand to hand,
    As she took the beach with a grind and a roar,
      And the pirates rushed inland!

The Playmate

“Aunt Ellen”
From “Limits and Renewals” (1932)
She is not Folly — that I know.
Her steadfast eyelids tell me so
When, at the hour the lights divide,
She steals as summonsed to my side.

When, finger on the pursed lip
In secret, mirthful fellowship,
She, heralding new — framed delights,
Breathes, “This shall be a Night of Nights!”

Then, out of Time and out of Space,
Is built an Hour and a Place
Where all an earnest, baffled Earth
Blunders and trips to make us mirth;

Whence from the trivial flux of Things,
Rise inconceived miscarryings,
Outrageous but immortal, shown,
Of Her great love, to me alone....

She is not Wisdom, but, maybe,
Wiser than all the Norns is She:
And more than Wisdom I prefer
To wait on Her, — to wait on Her!

The Plea of the Simla Dancers

    Too late, alas! the song
    To remedy the wrong; —
The rooms are taken from us, swept and
      garnished for their fate.
    But these tear-besprinkled pages
    Shall attest to future ages
That we cried against the crime of it —
      too late, alas! too late!

“What have
we
ever done to bear this grudge?”
  Was there no room save only in Benmore
For docket,
duftar,
and for office drudge,
  That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?
Must babus do their work on polished teak?
  Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill?
Was there no other cheaper house to seek?
  You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,
  Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;
And we revolved to divers melodies,
  And we were happy but a year ago.
To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles —
  That beamed upon us through the deodars —
Is wan with gazing on official files,
  And desecrating desks disgust the stars.

Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights —
  Nay! by the witchery of flying feet —
Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights —
  By all things merry, musical, and meet —
By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes —
  By wailing waltz — by reckless gallop’s strain —
By dim verandas and by soft replies,
  Give us our ravished ball-room back again!

Or — hearken to the curse we lay on you!
  The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain,
And murmurs of past merriment pursue
  Your ‘wildered clerks that they indite in vain;
And when you count your poor Provincial millions,
  The only figures that your pen shall frame
Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions
  Danced out in tumult long before you came.

Yea!
“See Saw”
shall upset your estimates,
 
“Dream Faces”
shall your heavy heads bemuse,
Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates
  Our temple; fit for higher, worthier use.
And all the long verandas, eloquent
  With echoes of a score of Simla years,
Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment —
  Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears.