Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1062 page)

            If any God should say,
             “I will restore
            The world her yesterday
              Whole  as  before
My Judgment blasted it” — who would not lift
Heart, eye, and hand in passion o’er the gift?

            If any God should will
              To wipe from mind
            The memory of this ill
               Which is Mankind
In soul and substance now — who would not bless
Even to tears His loving-tenderness?

            If any God should give
               Us leave to fly
             These present deaths we live,
               And  safely  die
In those lost lives we lived ere we were born —
What man but would not laugh the excuse to scorn?

             For we are what we are —
               So broke to blood
            And the strict works of war —
              So long subdued
To sacrifice, that threadbare Death commands
Hardly observance at our busier hands.

           Yet we were what we were,
              And, fashioned so,
            It pleases us to stare
              At the far show
Of unbelievable years and shapes that flit,
In our own likeness, on the edge of it.

The Recall

I am the land of their fathers,
In me the virtue stays.
I will bring back my children,
After certain days.

Under their feet in the grasses
My clinging magic runs.
They shall return as strangers.
They shall remain as sons.

Over their heads in the branches
Of their new-bought, ancient trees,
I weave an incantation
And draw them to my knees.

Scent of smoke in the evening,
Smell of rain in the night —
The hours, the days and the seasons,
Order their souls aright,

Till I make plain the meaning
Of all my thousand years —
Till I fill their hearts with knowledge,
While I fill their eyes with tears.

A Recantation

1917
(To Lyde of the Music Halls)

What boots it on the Gods to call?
  Since, answered or unheard,
We perish with the Gods and all
  Things made — except the Word.

Ere certain Fate had touched a heart
  By fifty years made cold,
I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art
  O’erblown and over-bold.

But he — but he, of whom bereft
  I suffer vacant days —
He on his shield not meanly left
  He cherished all thy lays.

Witness the magic coffer stocked
  With convoluted runes
Wherein thy very voice was locked
   And linked to circling tunes.

Witness thy portrait, smoke-defiled,
  That decked his shelter-place.
Life seemed more present, wrote the child,
  Beneath thy well-known face.

And when the grudging days restored
  Him for a breath to home,
He, with fresh crowds of youth, adored
  Thee making mirth in Rome.

Therefore, I humble, join the hosts,
  Loyal and loud, who bow
To thee as Queen of Song — and ghosts,
  For I remember how

Never more rampant rose the Hall
  At thy audacious line
Than when the news came in from Gaul
  Thy son had — followed mine.

But thou didst hide it in thy breast
  And, capering, took the brunt
Of blaze and blare, and launched the jest
  That swept next week the front.

Singer to children!   Ours possessed
  Sleep before noon — but thee,
Wakeful each midnight for the rest,
  No holocaust shall free!

Yet they who use the Word assigned,
  To hearten and make whole,
Not less than Gods have served mankind,
  Though vultures rend their soul.

Recessional

(A Victorian Ode)
God of our fathers, known of old —
  Lord of our far-flung battle line —
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
  Dominion over palm and pine —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies —
  The Captains and the Kings depart —
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
  An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away —
  On dune and headland sinks the fire —
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
  Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
  Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe —
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
  Or lesser breeds without the Law —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
  In reeking tube and iron shard —
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
  And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
                              Amen.

A Rector’s Memory

St. Andrews, 1923
From “Limits and Renewals” (1932)
The, Gods that are wiser than Learning
  But kinder than Life have made sure
No mortal may boast in the morning
  That even will find him secure.
With naught for fresh faith or new trial,
  With little unsoiled or unsold,
Can the shadow go back on the dial,
  Or a new world be given for the old?
     
But he knows not that time shall awaken,
        As he knows not what tide shall lay bare,
      The heart of a man to be taken —
       Taken and changed unaware.

He shall see as he tenders his vows
   The far, guarded City arise —
The power of the North ‘twixt Her brows —
   The steel of the North in Her eyes;
The sheer hosts of Heaven above —
   The grey warlock Ocean beside;
And shall feel the full centuries move
   To Her purpose and pride.

Though a stranger shall he understand,
  As though it were old in his blood,
The lives that caught fire ‘neath Her hand —
  The fires that were tamed to Her mood.
And the roar of the wind shall refashion,
  And the wind-driven torches recall,
The passing of Time and the passion
  Of Youth over all!
     
And, by virtue of magic unspoken
        (What need She should utter Her power?)
      The frost at his heart shall be broken
        And his spirit be changed in that hour —
     Changed and renewed in that hour!

The Reeds of Runnymede

Magna Charta, June 15, 1215
At Runnymede, At Runnymede,
   What say the reeds at Runnymede?
The lissom reeds that give and take,
That bend so far, but never break,
They keep the sleepy Thames awake
   With tales of John at Runnymede.

At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
   Oh, hear the reeds at Runnymede: —
“You mustn’t sell, delay, deny,
A freeman’s right or liberty.
It makes the stubborn Englishry,
   We saw ‘em roused at Runnymede!

“When through our ranks the Barons came,
   With little thought of praise or blame,
But resolute to pay a game,
They lumbered up to Runnymede;
And there they launched in solid time
The first attack on Right Divine —
The curt, uncompromising ‘Sign!’
   That settled John at Runnymede.

“At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Your rights were won at Runnymede!
No freeman shall be fined or bound,
   Or dispossessed or freehold ground,
Except by lawful judgment found
And passed upon him by his peers.
Forget not, after all these years,
   The Charter Signed at Runnymede.”

And still when Mob or Monarch lays
Too rude hand on English ways,
The whisper wakes, the shudder plays,
   Across the reeds at Runnymede.
And Tames, that knows the moods of kings,
And crowds and priests and suchlike things,
Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings
   Their warning down from Runnymede!

The Reformers

1901
Not in the camp his victory lies
  Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation’s sacrifice
To turn the judgement from his race.

Happy is he who, bred and taught
  By sleek, sufficing Circumstance —
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
  Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance —

Seese, on the threshold of his days,
  The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to unheralded dismays
  Submits his body and his soul;

The fatted shows wherein he stood
  Foregoing, and the idiot pride,
That he may prove with his own blood
  All that his easy sires denied —

Ultimate issues, primal springs,
  Demands, abasements, penalties —
The imperishable plinth of things
  Seen and unseen, that touch our peace.

For, though ensnaring ritual dim
  His vision through the after-years,
Yet virtue shall go out of him —
Example profiting his peers.

With great things charged he shall not hold
  Aloof till great occasion rise,
But serve, full-harnessed, as of old,
  The Days that are the Destinies.

He shall forswear and put away
  The idols of his sheltered house;
And to Necessity shall pay
  Unflinching tribute of his vows.

He shall not plead another’s act,
  Nor bind him in another’s oath
To weigh the Word above the Fact,
  Or make or take excuse for sloth.

The yoke he bore shall press him still,
  And, long-ingrained effort goad
To find, to fasion, and fulfil
  The cleaner life, the sterner code.

Not in the camp his victory lies —
  The world (unheeding his return)
Shall see it in his children’s eyes
  And from his grandson’s lips shall learn!

The Return

Peace is declared, and I return
To ‘Ackneystadt, but not the same;
Things ‘ave transpired which made me learn
The size and meanin’ of the game.
I did no more than others did,
I don’t know where the change began;
I started as a average kid,
I finished as a thinkin’ man.

If England was what England seems
An’ not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass, an’ paint,
‘Ow quick we’d drop ‘er!
But she ain’t!

Before my gappin’ mouth could speak
I ‘eard it in my comrade’s tone;
I saw it on my neighbour’s cheek
Before I felt it flush my own.
An’ last it come to me — not pride,
Nor yet conceit, but on the ‘ole
(If such a term may be applied),
The makin’s of a bloomin’ soul.

Rivers at night that cluck an’ jeer,
Plains which the moonshine turns to sea,
Mountains that never let you near,
An’ stars to all eternity;
An’ the quick-breathin’ dark that fills
The ‘ollows of the wilderness,
When the wind worries through the ‘ills —
These may ‘ave taught me more or less.

Towns without people, ten times took,
An’ ten times left an’ burned at last;
An’ starvin’ dogs that come to look
For owners when a column passed;
An’ quiet, ‘omesick talks between
Men, met by night, you never knew
Until — ’is face — by shellfire seen —
Once — an’ struck off. They taught me, too.

The day’s lay-out — the mornin’ sun
Beneath your ‘at-brim as you sight;
The dinner-’ush from noon till one,
An’ the full roar that lasts till night;
An’ the pore dead that look so old
An’ was so young an hour ago,
An’ legs tied down before they’re cold —
These are the things which make you know.

Also Time runnin’ into years —
A thousand Places left be’ind —
An’ Men from both two ‘emispheres
Discussin’ things of every kind;
So much more near than I ‘ad known,
So much more great than I ‘ad guessed —
An’ me, like all the rest, alone —
But reachin’ out to all the rest!

So ‘ath it come to me — not pride,
Nor yet conceit, but on the ‘ole
(If such a term may be applied),
The makin’s of a bloomin’ soul.
But now, discharged, I fall away
To do with little things again....
Gawd, ‘oo knows all I cannot say,
Look after me in Thamesfontein!

If England was what England seems
An’ not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass, an’ paint,
‘Ow quick we’d chuck ‘er!