Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1077 page)

Here through the strong and shadeless days
  The tinkling silence thrills;
Or little, lost, Down churches praise
  The Lord who made the hills:
But here the Old Gods guard their round,
  And, in her secret heart,
The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found
  Dreams, as she dwells, apart.

Though all the rest were all my share,
  With equal soul I’d see
Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair,
  Yet none more fair than she.
Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,
  And I will choose instead
Such lands as lie ‘twixt Rake and Rye,
  Black Down and Beachy Head.

I will go out against the sun
  Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
  Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
  To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
  Our ports of stranded pride.

I will go north about the shaws
  And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
  No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s
  Begilded dolphin veers,
And red beside wide-banked Ouse
  Lie down our Sussex steers.

So to the land our hearts we give
  Til the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
  Us and our fields alike —
That deeper than our speech and thought,
  Beyond our reason’s sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
  Yearns to its fellow-clay.

God gives all men all earth to love,
  But, since man’s heart is smal,
Ordains for each one spot shal prove
  Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
  The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground —
  Yea, Sussex by the sea!

A Tale of Two Cities

Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
    On his
byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
    Come and
go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
    Hides and
ghi;
Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints
    In his prints;
Stands a City — Charnock chose it — packed away
    Near a Bay —
By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer
    Made impure,
By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp
    Moist and damp;
And the City and the Viceroy, as we see,
    Don’t agree.
Once, two hundered years ago, the trader came
    Meek and tame.
Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed,
    Till mere trade
Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth
    South and North
Till the country from Peshawur to Ceylon
    Was his own.
Thus the midday halt of Charnock — more’s the pity!
    Grew a City.
As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,
    So it spread —
Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built
    On the silt —
Palace, byre, hovel — poverty and pride —
    Side by side;
And, above the packed and pestilential town,
    Death looked down.
But the Rulers in that City by the Sea
    Turned to flee —
Fled, with each returning spring-tide from its ills
    To the Hills.
From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaze
    Of old days,
From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat,
    Beat retreat;
For the country from Peshawur to Ceylon
    Was their own.
But the Merchant risked the perils of the Plain
    For his gain.
Now the resting-place of Charnock, ‘neath the palms,
    Asks an alms,
And the burden of its lamentation is, Briefly, this:
“Because for certain months, we boil and stew,
    So should you.
Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspire
    In our fire!”
And for answer to the argument, in vain
    We explain
That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot fry:
    “
All
must fry!”
That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain
    For gain.
Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in,
    From its kitchen.
Let the Babu drop inflammatory hints
  In his prints;
And mature — consistent soul — his plan for stealing
  To Darjeeling:
Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile,
    England’s isle;
Let the City Charnock pitched on — evil day!
    Go Her way.
Though the argosies of Asia at Her doors
    Heap their stores,
Though Her enterprise and energy secure
    Income sure,
Though “out-station orders punctually obeyed”
  Swell Her trade —
Still,
for rule, administration, and the rest,
    Simla’s best.

Tarrant Moss

I closed and drew for my love’s sake
That now is false to me,
And I slew the Reiver of Tarrant Moss
And set Dumeny free.

They have gone down, they have gone down,
They are standing all arow —
Twenty knights in the peat-water,
That never struck a blow!

Their armour shall not dull nor rust,
Their flesh shall not decay,
For Tarrant Moss holds them in trust,
Until the Judgment Day.

Their soul went from them in their youth,
Ah God, that mine had gone,
Whenas I leaned on my love’s truth
And not on my sword alone!

Whenas I leaned on lad’s belief
And not on my naked blade —
And I slew a thief, and an honest thief,
For the sake of a worthless maid.

They have laid the Reiver low in his place,
They have set me up on high,
But the twenty knights in the peat-water
Are luckier than I!

And ever they give me gold and praise
And ever I mourn my loss —
For I struck the blow for my false love’s sake
And not for the Men of the: Moss!

Things and the Man

(In Memoriam, Joseph Chamberlain)
             1904

 
“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren
 and they hated him yet the more.” — Genesis xxxvii. 5.

Oh ye who hold the written clue
  To all save all unwritten things,
And, half a league behind, pursue
  The accomplished Fact with flouts and flings,
  Look! To your knee your baby brings
    The oldest tale since Earth began —
  The answer to your worryings:
   
“Once on a time there was a Man.”

He, single-handed, met and slew
  Magicians, Armies, Ogres, Kings.
He lonely ‘mid his doubting crew —
  “In all the loneliness of wings “ —
  He fed the flame, he filled the springs,
    He locked the ranks, he launched the van
  Straight at the grinning Teeth of Things.
   
“Once on a time there was a Man.”

The peace of shocked Foundations flew
  Before his ribald questionings.
He broke the Oracles in two,
  And bared the paltry wires and strings.
  He headed desert wanderings;
    He led his soul, his cause, his clan
  A little from the ruck of Things.
    “Once on a time there was a Man.”

Thrones, Powers, Dominions block the view
   With episodes and underlings —
The meek historian deems them true
  Nor heeds the song that Clio sings —
  The simple central truth that stings
    The mob to boo, the priest to ban;
   Things never yet created things —
    
“Once on a time there was a Man.”

A bolt is fallen from the blue.
  A wakened realm full circle swings
Where Dothan’s dreamer dreams anew
  Of vast and farborne harvestings;
  And unto him an Empire clings
    That grips the purpose of his plan.
  My Lords, how think you of these things?
   
Once — in our time — is there a Man?

The Thorkild’s Song

“The Knights of the Joyous Venture”
 — Puck of Pook’s Hill
There’s no wind along these seas,
Out oars for Stavenger!
Forward all for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
Let fall for Stavenger!
A long pull for Stavenger!

Oh, hear the benches creak and strain!
(A long pull for Stavenger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland rain!
(A long pull for Stavenger!)

She thinks she smells the Northland snow,
And she’s as glad as we to go,

She thinks she smells the Northland rime,
And the dear dark nights of winter-time.

She wants to be at her own home pier,
To shift her sails and standing gear.

She wants to be in her winter-shed,
To strip herself and go to bed,

Her very bolts are sick for shore,
And we-we want it ten times more!

So all you Gods that love brave men,
Send us a three-reef gale again!

Send us a gale, and watch us come,
With close-cropped canvas slashing home!

But

— there’s no wind on all these seas,
A long pull for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
A long pull for Stavenger!

The Thousandth Man

“SIMPLE SIMON” — REWARDS AND FAIRIES
One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it’s worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine nundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.

‘Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for ‘ee.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em go
By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.
But if he finds you and you find him.
The rest of the world don’t matter;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
With you in any water.

You can use his purse with no more talk
Than he uses yours for his spendings,
And laugh and meet in your daily walk
As though there had been no lendings.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man h’s worth ‘em all,
Because you can show him your feelings.

His wrong’s your wrong, and his right’s your right,
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men’s sight —
With
that
for your only reason!
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide
The shame or mocking or laughter,
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
To the gallows-foot — and after!

The Three-Decker

1894
“The three-volume novel is extinct.”
Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It took a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I’ve found her first and best –
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held the breeze behind us – ‘twas warm with lover’s prayers,
We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions – we pumped no hidden shame –
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but – Zuleika didn’t tell.

No moral doubts assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
‘Twas fiddle in the foc’s’le – ‘twas garlands on the mast,
For every one was married, and I went at shore at last.

I left ‘em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and parents signing cheques.
In endless English comfort, by county-folk caressed,
I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! . . .

That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise,
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching searchlight – ‘twill show no haven’s peace.
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens at the deaf, grey-bearded seas!
Boom our the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest –
And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest.

But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;
You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ‘neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!