Rudyard Kipling – A Ballade of Jakko Hill

One moment bid the horses wait,

Since tiffin is not laid till three,

Below the upward path and straight

You climbed a year ago with me.

Love came upon us suddenly

And loosed -- an idle hour to kill --

A headless, armless armory

That smote us both on Jakko Hill.

Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait

Through Time and to Eternity!

Ah Heaven! we could conquer Fate

With more than Godlike constancy

I cut the date upon a tree --

Here stand the clumsy figures still:

"10-7-85, A.D."

Damp with the mist of Jakko Hill.

What came of high resolve and great,

And until Death fidelity!

Whose horse is waiting at your gate?

Whose 'rickshaw-wheels ride over me?

No Saint's, I swear; and -- let me see

To-night what names your programme fill --

We drift asunder merrily,

As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill.

L'envoi.

Princess, behold our ancient state

Has clean departed; and we see

'Twas Idleness we took for Fate

That bound light bonds on you and me.

Amen! Here ends the comedy

Where it began in all good will;

Since Love and Leave together flee

As driven mist on Jakko Hill!

Rudyard Kipling – Justice

Across a world where all men grieve

   And grieving strive the more,

The great days range like tides and leave

    Our dead on every shore.

Heavy the load we undergo,

    And our own hands prepare,

If we have parley with the foe,

    The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word

    That bids new worlds to birth,

Needs must we loosen first the sword

    Of Justice upon earth;

Or else all else is vain

    Since life on earth began,

And the spent world sinks back again

    Hopeless of God and Man.

A People and their King

    Through ancient sin grown strong,

Because they feared no reckoning

    Would set no bound to wrong;

But now their hour is past,

    And we who bore it find

Evil Incarnate held at last

    To answer to mankind.

For agony and spoil

    Of nations beat to dust,

For poisoned air and tortured soil

    And cold, commanded lust,

And every secret woe

    The shuddering waters saw—

Willed and fulfilled by high and low—

    Let them relearn the Law:

That when the dooms are read,

    Not high nor low shall say:—

"My haughty or my humble head

    Has saved me in this day."

That, till the end of time,

    Their remnant shall recall

Their fathers' old, confederate crime

    Availed them not at all:

That neither schools nor priests,

    Nor Kings may build again

A people with the heart of beasts

    Made wise concerning men.

Whereby our dead shall sleep

    In honour, unbetrayed,

And we in faith and honour keep

    That peace for which they paid.

October, 1918

Rudyard Kipling – The Bell Buoy

They christened my brother of old—

   And a saintly name he bears—

They gave him his place to hold

   At the head of the belfry-stairs,

   Where the minster-towers stand

And the breeding kestrels cry.

   Would I change with my brother a league inland?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I !

In the flush of the hot June prime,

   O’er sleek flood-tides afire,

I hear him hurry the chime

   To the bidding of checked Desire;

   Till the sweated ringers tire

And the wild bob-majors die.

   Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!

When the smoking scud is blown—

   When the greasy wind-rack lowers—

Apart and at peace and alone,

   He counts the changeless hours.

   He wars with darkling Powers

(I war with, a darkling sea);

   Would he stoop to my work in the gusty mirk?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not he!

There was never a priest to pray,

   There was never a hand to toll,

When they made me guard of the bay,

   And moored me over the shoal.

   I rock, I reel, and I roll—

My four great hammers ply—

   Could I speak or be still at the Church’s will?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!

The landward marks have failed,

   The fog-bank glides unguessed,

The seaward lights are veiled,

   The spent deep feigns her rest:

   But my ear is laid to her breast,

I lift to the swell—I cry!

   Could I wait in sloth on the Church’s oath?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!

At the careless end of night

   I thrill to the nearing screw;

I turn in the clearing light

   And I call to the drowsy crew;

   And the mud boils foul and blue

As the blind bow backs away.

   Will they give me their thanks if they clear the banks?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not they!

The beach-pools cake and skim,

   The bursting spray-heads freeze,

I gather on crown and rim

   The grey, grained ice of the seas,

   Where, sheathed from bitt to trees,

The plunging colliers lie.

   Would I barter my place for the Church’s grace?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!

Through the blur of the whirling snow,

   Or the black of the inky sleet,

The lanterns gather and grow,

   And I look for the homeward fleet.

   Rattle of block and sheet—

‘Ready about—stand by!’

   Shall I ask them a fee ere they fetch the quay?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!

I dip and I surge and I swing

   In the rip of the racing tide,

By the gates of doom I sing,

   On the horns of death I ride.

   A ship-length overside,

Between the course and the sand,

   Fretted and bound I bide

             Peril whereof I cry.

Would I change with my brother a league inland?

(Shoal! ’Ware shoal!) Not I!

(1896)

Rudyard Kipling – Harp Song of the Dane Women

“The Knights of the Joyous Venture” — Puck of Pook’s Hill

What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in —

But one chill bed for all to rest in,

That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,

But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you—

Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,

And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,

Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.

You steal away to the lapping waters,

And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,

The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables—

To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,

And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,

Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

Rudyard Kipling – The Children

("The Honours of War"—A Diversity of Creatures)

1914-18

These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight.

    We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter.

    The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another’s hereafter.

Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it.    That is our right.

        But who shall return us the children?

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,

    And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,

    The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us—

Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,

Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o’ercame us.

They believed us and perished for it.    Our statecraft, our learning

Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning

Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour—

Nor since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.

    The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:

    Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,

Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marveling, closed on them.

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given

To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven—

By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled in the wires—

To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes— to be cindered by fires—

To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation

From crater to crater.    For that we shall take expiation.

        But who shall return us our children?