Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1083 page)

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.   .   .   .
But there is no road through the woods.

We and They

“A Friend of the Family”
From “Debits and Credits”(1919-1923)
Father and Mother, and Me,
  Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
  And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
  While We live over the way,
But-would you believe it? — They look upon We
  As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef
  With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
  Are horrified out of Their lives;
While they who live up a tree,
  And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn’t it scandalous? ) look upon We
  As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun.
  They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
  We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
  We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
  As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.
  We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
  Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
  They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
  As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,
  And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
  And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
  Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
  As only a sort of They!

The Wet Litany

“Their Lawful Occasions”
 — Traffics and Discoveris
When the waters’ countenance
Blurs ‘twixt glance and second glance;
When our tattered smokes forerun
Ashen ‘neath a silvered sun;
When the curtain of the haze
Shuts upon our helpless ways —
   Hear the Channel Fleet at sea:
  
Libera nos Domine!

When the engines’ bated pulse
Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
When the wash along the side
Sounds, a-sudden, magnified;
When the intolerable blast
Marks each blindfold minute passed;

When the fog-buoy’s squattering flight
Guides us ‘through the haggard night;
When the warning bugle blows;
When the lettered doorway’s close;
When our brittle townships press,
Impotent, on emptiness;

When the unseen leadsmen lean
Questioning a deep unseen;
When their lessened count they tell
To a bridge invisible;
When the hid and perilous
Cliffs return our cry to us;

When the treble thickness spread
Swallows up our next-ahead;
When her sirens frightened whine
Shows her sheering out of line;
When — her passage undiscerned —
We must turn where she has turned,
Hear the Channel Fleet at sea:
Libera nos Domine!

What Happened

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
Owner of a native press, “Barrishter-at-Lar,”
Waited on the Government with a claim to wear
Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.

Then the Indian Government winked a wicked wink,
Said to Chunder Mookerjee: “Stick to pen and ink.
They are safer implements, but, if you insist,
We will let you carry arms wheresoe’er you list.”

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee sought the gunsmith and
Bought the tubes of Lancaster, Ballard, Dean, and Bland,
Bought a shiny bowie-knife, bought a town-made sword,
Jingled like a carriage-horse when he went abroad.

But
the Indian Government, always keen to please,
Also gave permission to horrid men like these —
Yar Mahommed Yusufzai, down to kill or steal,
Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer, Tantia the Bhil;

Killar Khan the Marri chief, Jowar Singh the Sikh,
Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat, Abdul Huq Rafiq —
He was a Wahabi; last, little Boh Hla-oo
Took advantage of the Act — took a Snider too.

They were unenlightened men, Ballard knew them not.
They procured their swords and guns chiefly on the spot;
And the lore of centuries, plus a hundred fights,
Made them slow to disregard one another’s rights.

With a unanimity dear to patriot hearts
All those hairy gentlemen out of foreign parts
Said: “The good old days are back — let us go to war!”
Swaggered down the Grand Trunk Road into Bow Bazaar,

Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat found a hide-bound flail;
Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer oiled his Tonk jezail;
Yar Mahommed Yusufzai spat and grinned with glee
As he ground the butcher-knife of the Khyberee.

Jowar Singh the Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace,
Abdul Huq, Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place,
While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered
Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his dah-blade from the scabbard.

What became of Mookerjee? Smoothly, who can say?
Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way,
Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute.
But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.

What became of Ballard’s guns? Afghans black and grubby
Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;
And the shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword are
Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border.

What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar
Prodding Siva’s sacred bull down the Bow Bazaar.
Speak to placid Nubbee Baksh — question land and sea —
Ask the Indian Congressmen — only don’t ask me!

What the People Said

(June 21st, 1887)
By the well, where the bullocks go
Silent and blind and slow —
By the field where the young corn dies
In the face of the sultry skies,
They have heard, as the dull Earth hears
The voice of the wind of an hour,
The sound of the Great Queen’s voice:
“My God hath given me years,
Hath granted dominion and power:
And I bid you, O Land, rejoice.”

And the ploughman settles the share
More deep in the grudging clod;
For he saith: “The wheat is my care,
And the rest is the will of God.
He sent the Mahratta spear
As He sendeth the rain,
And the
Mlech,
in the fated year,
Broke the spear in twain.
And was broken in turn. Who knows
How our Lords make strife?
It is good that the young wheat grows,
For the bread is Life.”

Then, far and near, as the twilight drew,
  Hissed up to the scornful dark
Great serpents, blazing, of red and blue,
That rose and faded, and rose anew.
  That the Land might wonder and mark
“To-day is a day of days,” they said,
“Make merry, O People, all!”
And the Ploughman listened and bowed his head:
“To-day and to-morrow God’s will,” he said,
As he trimmed the lamps on the wall.

“He sendeth us years that are good,
As He sendeth the dearth,
He giveth to each man his food,
Or Her food to the Earth.
Our Kings and our Queens are afar —
On their peoples be peace —
God bringeth the rain to the Bar,
That our cattle increase.”

And the Ploughman settled the share
More deep in the sun-dried clod:
“Mogul Mahratta, and
Mlech
from the North,
And White Queen over the Seas —
God raiseth them up and driveth them forth
As the dust of the ploughshare flies in the breeze;
But the wheat and the cattle are all my care,
And the rest is the will of God.”

When Earth’s Last Picture Is Painted

1892
L’Envoi To “The Seven Seas”
When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
Andd no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!

When the Great Ark

When the Great Ark, in Vigo Bay,
   Rode stately through the half-manned fleet,
From every ship about her way
  She heard the mariners entreat —
Before we take the seas again
Let down your boats and send us men!

“We have no lack of victual here
    With work — God knows! — enough for all,
To hand and reef and watch and steer,
    Because our present strength is small.
While your three decks are crowded so
Your crews can scarcely stand or go.

“In war, your numbers do but raise
   Confusion and divided will;
In storm, the mindless deep obeys
   Not multitudes but single skills.
In calm, your numbers, closely pressed,
Must breed a mutiny or pest.

“We  even on unchallenged seas,
   Dare not adventure where we would,
But forfeit brave advantages
   For lack of men to make ‘em good;
Whereby, to England’s double cost,
Honour and profit both are lost!”

When the Journey Was Intended to the City

Milton
 — The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)

When that with meat and drink they had fulfilled
Not temperately but like him conceived
In monstrous jest at Meudon, whose regale
Stands for exemplar of Gargantuan greed,
In his own name supreme, they issued forth
Beneath new firmaments and stars astray,
Circumvoluminant; nor had they felt
Neither the passage nor the sad effect
Of many cups partaken, till that frost
Wrought on them hideous, and their minds deceived.
Thus choosing from a progeny of roads,
That seemed but were not, one most reasonable,
Of purest moonlight fashioned on a wall,
Thither they urged their chariot whom that flint
But tressed received, itself unscathed — not they.

When ‘Omer Smote ‘Is Bloomin’ Lyre

INTRODUCTION TO THE BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS IN “THE SEVEN SEAS”

When ‘Omer smote ‘is bloomin’ lyre,
  He’d ‘eard men sing by land an’ sea;
An’ what he thought ‘e might require,
  ‘E went an’ took — the same as me!

The market-girls an’ fishermen,
  The shepherds an’ the sailors, too,
They ‘eard old songs turn up again,
  But kep’ it quiet — same as you!

They knew ‘e stole; ‘e knew they knowed.
  They didn’t tell, nor make a fuss,
But winked at ‘Omer down the road,
  An’ ‘e winked back — the same as us!

The Widower

For a season there must be pain —
For a little, little space
I shall lose the sight of her face,
Take back the old life again
While She is at rest in her place.  

For a season this pain must endure,
For a little, little while
I shall sigh more often than smile
Till time shall work me a cure,
And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart,
For a little length of years,
Till my life’s last hour nears,
And, above the beat of my heart,
I hear Her voice in my ears.

But I shall not understand —
Being set on some later love,
Shall not know her for whom I strove,
Till she reach me forth her hand,
Saying, “Who but I have the right?”
And out of a troubled night
Shall draw me safe to the land.

What Happened

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
Owner of a native press, “Barrishter-at-Lar,”
Waited on the Government with a claim to wear
Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.