Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1068 page)

Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees — inland where the slayer may slay him —
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him
His Sea from the first that betrayed — at the last that shall never betray him:
          His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.

Seal Lullaby

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

The Sea-Wife

There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
 And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o’ rovin’ men
 And casts them over sea.

And some are drowned in deep water,
 And some in sight o’ shore,
And word goes back to the weary wife
 And ever she sends more.

For since that wife had gate or gear,
 Or hearth or garth or bield,
She willed her sons to the white harvest,
 And that is a bitter yield.

She wills her sons to the wet ploughing,
 To ride the horse of tree,
And syne her sons come back again
 Far-spent from out the sea.

The good wife’s sons come home again
 With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that ha’ dealt with men
 In the new and naked lands;

But the faith of men that ha’ brothered men
 By more than easy breath,
And the eyes o’ men that ha’ read wi’ men
 In the open books of death.

Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
 But poor in the goods o’ men;
So what they ha’ got by the skin o’ their teeth
 They sell for their teeth again.

For whether they lose to the naked life
 Or win to their hearts’ desire,
They tell it all to the weary wife
 That nods beside the fire.

Her hearth is wide to every wind
 That makes the white ash spin;
And tide and tide and ‘tween the tides
 Her sons go out and in;

(Out with great mirth that do desire
 Hazard of trackless ways,
In with content to wait their watch
 And warm before the blaze);

And some return by failing light,
 And some in waking dream,
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
 That ride the rough roof-beam.

Home, they come home from all the ports,
 The living and the dead;
The good wife’s sons come home again
 For her blessing on their head!

The Second Voyage

1903
We’ve sent our little Cupids all ashore —
  They were frightened, they were tired, they were cold:
Our sails of silk and purple go to store,
  And we’ve cut away our mast of beaten gold
    (Foul weather!)
Oh ‘tis hemp and singing pine for to stand against the brine,
  But Love he is our master as of old!

The sea has shorn our galleries away,
  The salt has soiled our gilding past remede;
Our paint is flaked and blistered by the spray,
  Our sides are half a fathom furred in weed
    (Foul weather!)
And the Doves of Venus fled and the petrels came instead,
  But Love he was our master at our need!

‘Was Youth would keep no vigil at the bow,
  ‘Was Pleasure at the helm too drunk to steer —
We’ve shipped three able quartermasters now.
  Men call them Custom, Reverence, and Fear
    (Foul weather!)
They are old and scarred and plain, but we’ll run no risk again
  From any Port o’ Paphos mutineer!

We seek no more the tempest for delight,
  We skirt no more the indraught and the shoal —
We ask no more of any day or night
  Than to come with least adventure to our goal
    (Foul weather!)
What we find we needs must brook, but we do not go to look,
  Nor tempt the Lord our God that saved us whole.

Yet, caring so, not overmuch we care
  To brace and trim for every foolish blast,
If the squall be pleased to seep us unaware,
  He may bellow off to leeward like the last
    (Foul weather!)
We will blame it on the deep (for the watch must have their sleep),
  And Love can come and wake us when ‘tis past.

Oh launch them down with music from the beach,
  Oh warp them out with garlands from the quays —
Most resolute — a damsel unto each —
  New prows that seek the old Hesperides!
    (Foul weather!)
Though we know their voyage is vain, yet we see our path again
  In the saffroned bridesails scenting all the seas!
    (Foul weather!)

The Secret of the Machines

Modern Machinery

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
  We were melted in the furnace and the pit —
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
  We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
  And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
  We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

    We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
    We  can  print  and  plough  and  weave  and  heat  and light,
    We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
    We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world?
   If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,
You shall see and hear your cracking question hurled
  Across the arch of heaven while you wait.
Has he answered? Does he need you at his side-
 You can start this very evening if you choose
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
  O seventy thousand horses and some screws!

    The boat-express is waiting your command!
    You will find the Mauritania at the quay,
    Till her captain turns the lever ‘neath his hand,
    And the monstrouos nine-decked city goes to sea.

Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head
  And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?
Do you want to turn a river in its bed,
  Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
  From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,
To work the mills and tramways in your town,
  And irrigate your orchards as it flows?

    It is easy!  Give us dynamite and drills!
    Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake,
    As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
    And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,
  We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.
  If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings-
  Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods! —
 Our touch can alter all created things,
   We are everything on earth — except The Gods!

   
Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
    It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
    Because, for all our power and weight and size,
    We are nothing more than children of your brain!

Sepulchral

From the Greek Anthologies
 — The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)

Swifter than aught ‘neath the sun the car of Simonides moved
    him.
Two things he could not out-run — Death and a Woman who
    loved him.

The Sergeant’s Weddin’

‘E was warned agin’ ‘er —
 That’s what made ‘im look;
She was warned agin’ ‘im —
 That is why she took.
‘Wouldn’t ‘ear no reason,
 ‘Went an’ done it blind;
We know all about ‘em,
 They’ve got all to find!

Cheer for the Sergeant’s weddin’ —
Give ‘em one cheer more!
Grey gun-’orses in the lando,
An’ a rogue is married to, etc.

What’s the use o’ tellin’
 ‘Arf the lot she’s been?
‘E’s a bloomin’ robber,
 
An’
‘e keeps canteen.
‘Ow did ‘e get ‘is buggy?
 Gawd, you needn’t ask!
‘Made ‘is forty gallon
 Out of every cask!

Watch ‘im, with ‘is ‘air cut,
 Count us filin’ by —
Won’t the Colonel praise ‘is
 Pop — u — lar — i — ty!
We ‘ave scores to settle —
 Scores for more than beer;
She’s the girl to pay ‘em —
 That is why we’re ‘ere!

See the chaplain thinkin’?
 See the women smile?
Twig the married winkin’
 As they take the aisle?
Keep your side-arms quiet,
 Dressin’ by the Band.
Ho!  You ‘oly beggars,
 Cough be’ind your ‘and!

Now it’s done an’ over,
 ‘Ear the organ squeak,
“
‘Voice that breathed o’er Eden
” —
 Ain’t she got the cheek!
White an’ laylock ribbons,
 Think yourself so fine!
I’d pray Gawd to take yer
 ‘Fore I made yer mine!

Escort to the kerridge,
 Wish ‘im luck, the brute!
Chuck the slippers after —
 [Pity ‘tain’t a boot!]
Bowin’ like a lady,
 Blushin’ like a lad —
‘Oo would say to see ‘em
 Both is rotten bad?

Cheer for the Sergeant’s weddin’ —
 Give ‘em one cheer more!
Grey gun-’orses in the lando,
 An’ a rogue is married to, etc.

The Servant When He Reigneth

“For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear. For a servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married, and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.”
— PROV. XXX. 21-22-23.

Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book —
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Old Agur entered first.
An Handmaid that is Mistress
We need not call upon.
A Fool when he is full of Meat
Will fall asleep anon.
An Odious Woman Married
May bear a babe and mend;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Is Confusion to the end.

His feet are swift to tumult,
His hands are slow to toil,
His ears are deaf to reason,
His lips are loud in broil.
He knows no use for power
Except to show his might.
He gives no heed to judgment
Unless it prove him right.

Because he served a master
Before his Kingship came,
And hid in all disaster
Behind his master’s name,
So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.

His vows are lightly spoken,
His faith is hard to bind,
His trust is easy boken,
He fears his fellow-kind.
The nearest mob will move him
To break the pledge he gave —
Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth
Is more than ever slave!

Sestina of the Tramp-Royal

Speakin’ in general, I’ave tried ‘em all
The ‘appy roads that take you o’er the world.
Speakin’ in general, I’ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get ‘ence, the same as I’ave done,
An’ go observin’ matters till they die.

What do it matter where or ‘ow we die,
So long as we’ve our ‘ealth to watch it all —
The different ways that different things are done,
An’ men an’ women lovin’ in this world;
Takin’ our chances as they come along,
An’ when they ain’t, pretendin’ they are good?

In cash or credit — no, it aren’t no good;
You’ve to ‘ave the ‘abit or you’d die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn’t prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some’ow from the world,
An’ never bothered what you might ha’ done.

But, Gawd, what things are they I’aven’t done?
I’ve turned my ‘and to most, an’ turned it good,
In various situations round the world
For ‘im that doth not work must surely die;
But that’s no reason man should labour all
‘Is life on one same shift — life’s none so long.

Therefore, from job to job I’ve moved along.
Pay couldn’t ‘old me when my time was done,
For something in my ‘ead upset it all,
Till I’ad dropped whatever ‘twas for good,
An’, out at sea, be’eld the dock-lights die,
An’ met my mate — the wind that tramps the world!

It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin, world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you’re readi’n’ done,
An’ turn another — likely not so good;
But what you’re after is to turn’em all.